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Pat McCrory’s Parting Gifts p. 6 Is Booze a Band-Aid? p. 14 Elvis Ever After p. 22
ROY COOPER VS.THE WORLD As the new governor battles a hostile legislature, don’t forget the power of his progressive majority BY PAUL BLEST p. 10
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WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK | RALEIGH 6 Less than forty-eight hours before he left office, Pat McCrory placed some of his closest advisers on key state boards and commissions.
VOL. 33, NO. 51
8 Three months ago, Raleigh established a task force to look at short-term rentals like Airbnb. It hasn’t met. 9 The month Obama took office, the U.S. lost 818,000 jobs. In November 2016, we gained 216,000 jobs. 10 Even before he took office, Roy Cooper got a taste of what Phil Berger and Tim Moore have in store for him. 14 When a free music series stops being free, can it stay popular? 21 Years ago, Sierra Hull’s father showed her a few things on the mandolin. Now she’s up for a Grammy. 23 A nostalgia-free photography exhibit ditches dilapidated tobacco barns for images of life as it is lived in the Old North State. 25 Hidden Figures, a true story of African-American women in the space race, is about more than racism and sexism.
DEPARTMENTS 5
Backtalk
6
Triangulator
8
News
9
Soapboxer
17 Food 21 Music 23 Arts & Culture
The Kapayah Band performs in the Local Band Local Beer series at the Pour House in Raleigh. PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN
26 What to Do This Week 28 Music Calendar 32 Arts/Film Calendar
On the cover: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SHAN STUMPF
INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 3
Raleigh Durham | Chapel Hill
PUBLISHER Susan Harper EDITORIAL
EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeffrey C. Billman MANAGING EDITOR FOR ARTS+CULTURE Brian Howe DESIGN DIRECTOR Shan Stumpf NEWS EDITOR Ken Fine STAFF WRITER Paul Blest ASSOCIATE MUSIC EDITOR Allison Hussey ASSOCIATE ARTS EDITOR David Klein ASSOCIATE FOOD EDITOR Victoria Bouloubasis LISTINGS COORDINATOR Michaela Dwyer THEATER AND DANCE CRITIC Byron Woods CHIEF CONTRIBUTORS
Spencer Griffith, Corbie Hill, Laura Jaramillo, Emma Laperruque, Jill Warren Lucas, Sayaka Matsuoka, Glenn McDonald, Neil Morris, Angela Perez, Hannah Pitstick, Bryan C. Reed, V. Cullum Rogers, Dan Ruccia, Dan Schram, Zack Smith, Eric Tullis, Chris Vitiello, Ryan Vu, Patrick Wall, Iza Wojciechowska
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backtalk
Make Things Better We’ll kick off the New Year with responses to last week’s package of resolutions for living in Donald Trump’s America in 2017. “I really loved reading this,” writes Cajun Lady. “I have been so angry and depressed since November 8 that at times I feel useless. However, today I feel rejuvenated and motivated by everything written here. I truly hope people in North Carolina and the United States seriously think about what has taken place since the elections. Rather than letting certain racist and misogynistic groups think they have won and that it’s ‘game on’ for outrageous behavior, we need to address the wrongs and try to make things right and better.” Cityfox asks: “How is it the country clubbers, gated-community billionaires, and trust-fund babies get to use the word ‘elitist’? The real story: the so-called job creators did not want to spend money to train workers for the digital age. The bosses wanted low-wage workers. They didn’t want to pay health or pension benefits. Owners closed factories. They left town for overseas. Complacent workers in rural areas did not take advantage of government programs to retool and learn new computer/ digital skills. The revenue base of towns dwindled as rural kids moved to cities for jobs. They didn’t want to stay down on the farm or work in coal mines or steel mills. Once Trump voters find out they’ve been bamboozled, maybe they’ll start voting in their own best interests.” Finally, John Allore, a former managing director of Deep Dish Theater Company and a member of the financing team for Durham’s DPAC, has some thoughts on the troubles facing independent theater companies in the Triangle [“Fade to Black,” December 21]: “1) We are in relatively good economic times. A good time to ask for money or plan your capital campaign. A recession will hit again: not a good time to ask. Plan now, wait for a recession, move back into a pop-up space, and buy a property at a discount. “2) What to buy? Consider the assets local
governments tend to own. Then consider if any of those assets in your community are abandoned or have ‘outworn their useful life.’ I’m thinking schools, rec centers, fire stations, etc. Is there a local eyesore that could be converted? Would you be solving a community problem? Could you partner with your town or city? “3) Deep Dish didn’t close because it failed. Shows were sold out well in advance of opening night. Deep Dish closed because Silverspot didn’t want the competition. There is still an audience on that side of the Triangle. “4) Consider joint-ventures/multiuse. People tend to forget that Burning Coal took an old school and converted it into a theatre and affordable housing. 5) Owning is good; a long-term lease is just as good. 6.) The next time your local government pitches a new rec center, tell them you want a theater instead. “7) Propose a theater to your local government. How do you do this? Get on the government’s citizens capital advisory committee. 8) The Durham Budget Office is about to release a survey in the new year asking citizens to weigh in on future capital needs. A theater is not on the draft list, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t write it in. “9) The Carrboro Board of Aldermen didn’t reject the Artscenter’s bid to build a performing arts venue. They asked them to go back to the table and return when they had a better strategic vision. To my knowledge, the Artscenter hasn’t returned with a proposal, and I would propose that, ever since they dropped theatrical programming from their mission, they no longer represent our interests. There is nothing precluding another group coming forward and making a request to Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Orange, Chatham, or all four!”
“I truly hope people in North Carolina seriously think about what has taken place since the elections.”
Want to see your name in bold? Email us at backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on our Facebook page or indyweek.com, or hit us up on Twitter: @indyweek. INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 5
triangulator THE LEFTOVERS
McCrory associates who got new gigs on his way out the door
THOMAS STITH McCrory Association Chief of staff (2013–16)
LEE ROBERTS McCrory Association Budget director (2014–16)
BOB STEPHENS McCrory Association General counsel (2013–17)
SAMUEL BRATTON McCrory Association Donor
New Position Golden LEAF Foundation Board of Directors
New Position Golden LEAF Foundation Board of Directors
New Position State Board of Community Colleges member
New Position Mining Commission
RANDALL WILLIAMS McCrory Association DHHS deputy secretary (2015–16)
YOLANDA STITH* McCrory Association Married to Thomas Stith, McCrory’s chief of staff
New Position Oil and Gas Commission
New Position Industrial Commission member
DREW HEATH* McCrory Association Budget director (2016), Industrial Commission chairman (2013–16) New Position Special superior court judge
*Confirmed by the General Assembly on December 16. GRAPHIC BY SHAN STUMPF
+SOFT LANDINGS
Pat McCrory is gone, but less than forty-eight hours before leaving office, the outgoing governor placed some of his closest advisers—and some donors—on key state boards and commissions. McCrory made thirteen appointments on Friday. Chief of staff Thomas Stith and former budget director Lee Roberts were appointed to the board of the Golden LEAF Foundation, a state-chartered organization that recently received $25 million as part of the Hurricane Matthew relief package. McCrory general counsel Bob Stephens and former state representative Brian Brown, meanwhile, were appointed to the State Board of Community Colleges. Samuel Bratton, president of the Wake Stone Corporation, was among four appointments to the Mining Commission; he gave McCrory $11,500 in 2012 and 2016. (Bratton also cut four checks to new governor Roy Cooper, totaling $1,950, from 2006– 14.) Meanwhile, Department of Health and Human Services deputy secretary Randall Williams—who helped lead a department 6 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
that state epidemiologist Megan Davies said “deliberately misleads the public” when she resigned in August—got one of five appointments to the Oil and Gas Commission. All of these positions are unsalaried. These appointments follow two others that were confirmed during the General Assembly’s fourth special session: Yolanda Stith, who is married to Thomas Stith, was named to the Industrial Commission, an agency that administers the Workers’ Compensation Act; she’ll be paid more than $127,000 per year. Also, budget director Drew Heath was confirmed as a special superior court judge. While McCrory was handing out new jobs, one administration official decided to take matters into his own hands; during the last week of McCrory’s term, Donald van der Vaart, the polluter-protecting secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality who was on Donald Trump’s short list to head the EPA, demoted himself to a position in the air quality division that has civil service protections. . Though it’s happened at least once before— former Alcohol and Law Enforcement secre-
tary John Ledford demoted himself to an agent before McCrory took office—the move baffled some longtime political observers. “We’re kind of in uncharted waters with this whole dynamic,” says Catawba College professor Michael Bitzer.
+DEAD RED WOLF
As if the endangered red wolves in eastern North Carolina didn’t have enough to worry about—fleeting support from the federal government and a lobbying effort from politically connected landowners to remove the species—now they are being picked off by humans with guns. A red wolf was found shot dead December 21 in Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And while the government has offered a $2,500 reward for information (the Defenders of Wildlife has said it will match that figure), environmentalists and animal advocates argue the USFWS is partially to blame, as it has failed to properly protect the species, despite the existence of the nowflailing Red Wolf Recovery Program.
Ben Prater, the Defenders of Wildlife’s southeast program director, called the shooting a “huge blow to the species,” as there are currently fewer than forty-five red wolves remaining in the wild. “The poaching of any wild animal is intolerable, but the intentional killing of one of the world’s most endangered species is inexcusable,” Prater says. But is it? In a letter penned by nine members of Congress last month, the USFWS came under fire for, essentially, pushing North Carolina’s red wolf population to the brink of extinction. The representatives— all Democrats, none from North Carolina— said the government has failed the “iconic animal” by abandoning its responsibility to protect the wolves and turning a blind eye to “suspected illegal takes, allowing local opponents of recovery to believe that they can kill wolves with impunity. Of the seventeen wolves killed by gunshot since 2013, there has not been a single prosecution.” Advocates hope that this latest incident, however, will not go unnoticed, as the shooter not only broke the law but ignored a temporary injunction issued by District Court
Women’s Health Research Study
Judge Terrence Boyle this fall that prohibits landowners from shooting the wolves. (It’s possible the wolf was shot on private property and then moved to the refuge.) In the meantime, they’ll push the Cooper administration to demand that the federal government reverse recent USFWS actions that they deem detrimental: since 2012, the feds have eliminated the position of the red wolf recovery coordinator, redirected staff to other programs, ended a successful pupfostering program and coyote sterilization efforts, and halted introductions of captive red wolves into the wild.
+SLOW JUSTICE
It’s been six weeks since Frank Clark was shot and killed by a controversial Durham police officer in McDougald Terrace, and while members of the city council have requested that Governor Roy Cooper expedite the State Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the incident, the city’s review—despite numerous allegations of excessive force against Officer Charles Barkley and a postmortem photograph that appears to conflict with the police narrative of what went down November 22—has been slow-going. Barkley and the other officers involved in Clark’s death, Christopher Goss and Monte Southerland, are still on administrative
PERIPHERAL VISIONS | V.C. ROGERS
QUOTE OF THE WEEK A July 26 email from Department of Health and Human Services project manager Janet Hensel, obtained by the INDY last week as part of a public records request, criticizing the Democratic National Convention. (The email is reproduced verbatim—misspellings, extraneous punctuation, and all.) OMG!! The convention was sooooo horrible. Not even because of Hillary—but every speaker slamming Trump as racist, bigit, rich billionaire that’s had everything handed to him, bankruptcy, against Latinos … et al. Wow—Elizabeth Warren was out for blood!!!! (Dike)!!!! I don’t think any American fits that
leave. But no other action has yet been taken by city manager Tom Bonfield, even as civil rights advocates have called for the release of the officers’ personnel files, which might contain complaints issued against the officers as well as explanations of Southerland’s March 2016 suspension and Barkley’s 2014 suspension. When pressed by the INDY, a city spokesperson said the manager would be “releasing a statement” this week. (Council member Steve Schewel says Bonfield is con-
description. Guess what was so wrong about stage????? No American flags!!!!! Eva Longorio, Paul Simon, Susan Surandan, other Hollywood celebrities.
sidering releasing the files.) As of press time, no such release has been issued. In related news, a caseworker at the chief medical examiner’s office told the INDY last week that Clark’s autopsy is essentially complete, but it will not be released until the office receives the toxicology results. triangulator@indyweek.com This week’s report by Paul Blest and Ken Fine.
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indynews In January 2015, the city of Raleigh threatened to fine Five Points homeowner Gregg Stebben for renting out his guest quarters on Airbnb, jump-starting a slow-burning debate over if and how the city should regulate “short-term rentals.” In October, after about two dozen proponents of the sharing economy pushed back against proposed regulations, the city council appointed a citizen task force to study the issue and report back with recommendations this month. The problem? The task force has never met. Now, the city is kicking the can farther down the road, looking for recommendations by spring. “We’re meeting in January, and I thought they were saying we were supposed to done in January,” says Stebben, a member of the task force. “This has been an eye-opener for me. I’m a fifty-three-year-old guy who feels like he’s a junior in a high school civics class.” Before Stebben began renting out his place in 2014, he says, he received assurances from city officials that restrictions against using residential properties for bed-and-breakfasts wouldn’t apply unless someone complained. But someone did complain, anonymously, and the city told Stebben to stop or face fines. After this row became a hot local story—cracking down on Airbnb hosts seems to run counter to Raleigh’s carefully crafted image as a techfriendly hub for innovators—the city decided not to enforce those rules. That was two years ago. The issue has come up again several times since, with the city council unable to fashion regulations and sending the issue back to the planning commission or a committee, rinse, repeat. Council member Mary-Ann Baldwin says that “a number of people in our startup community have expressed major frustration” over the stalemate. Former mayor Charles Meeker is bewildered that it’s taken this long. “It’s better to work out tough issues in two or three committee meetings than to have issues pending for months and months,” he says. “Part of the issues of local government is that if these issues are pending, you get tied up. You need to make decisions and move on to something else.” The latest attempt came on October 4; proposed rules would have banned wholehouse rentals as well as place a four8 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
Home Alone A RALEIGH TASK FORCE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO COME UP WITH AIRBNB RULES BY THIS MONTH HAS NEVER MET BY PAUL BLEST
Gregg Stebben PHOTO BY JUSTIN COOK hundred foot buffer between short-term rentals—meaning that you can’t rent out a room on Airbnb if one of your neighbors signed up first.
After council lations, Rental
Stebben and others objected, the again split. Instead of new reguthe city created the Short-Term Task Force, a sixteen-member
Th
group tasked with discussing the issue with stakeholders, studying other markets, and coming up with recommendations at the end of January. “I walked away from that city council meeting with the impression that they wereBY JEFF going to name this task force within two weeks,” Stebben says. “And it’s now beenOn Friday months.” ter back-a The task force, says city spokesmanRussia’s a John Boyette, “will begin to meet duringtions to H the second week of January and will meetgin, I aske every two weeks,” a total of four times,Hager—un “with additional meetings scheduled asleader—si necessary.” the saying Baldwin tells the INDY that the cause ofwhen he t the delay is capacity. “Our planning staff His a is just overwhelmed,” she says. “They have1/20/200 more on their plate than they could possiblygreat.” (I’ handle, so this has gotten pushed out untilcontext o they could catch up and prioritize it.” January 2 Stebben says part of his frustrationAmerica b stems from the relatively low rate of com-the date o plaints against Airbnb hosts; at the Octo- This w ber meeting, proponents wore shirts thatanswer, c read “500 Hosts, 13,000 Guests, 7 Com-one of th plaints.” (According to Baldwin, betweenthe state. twelve and fifteen complaints have beenca was lik filed since 2014; of these, some have beenof office. deemed unfounded and others are multiplepercent ( complaints against the same house.) “Nomonths a one has actually said, ‘This is why it’s badlost 818,0 for Raleigh,’” Stebben says. “We’re debatingJones Ind something for two years and we don’t know7,949. Th why it’s a problem, or if anyone thinks it’s alion. The problem. It’s just weird.” rate of 6.3 “Given the circuitous route this issue hasspiked by taken through the city’s process, I’d say I’m2008, and cautiously optimistic we can get somethingcollapsed done in the first quarter of 2017,” says Brentwere with Woodcox, another member of the task forceless to say and the General Assembly’s redistrictingbloody w attorney. “But I’ll be more confident aboutinternatio the process once the meetings start, if they This, a are productive.” time Ame Baldwin, who has been supportive ofing to rea Airbnb hosts, says she intends to side withW. Bush b the task force, whatever it decides. “What-gated disa ever they come back with, I plan to sup- Now co port,” she says. “I don’t want to go throughty-nine h this process and then tell all of these citi-pares to tu zens who spent all of this time on it, ‘Nah,on earth that’s not what I want.’ At some point youTrump. U just have to set aside your personal feelings216,000 jo and do what’s best for the community.” eighty-fir pblest@indyweek.comsector job
WHAT IS
soapboxer
Thanks, Obama
ssue with kets, and ns at the
y councilWHAT IS IT THAT REALLY MAKES AMERICA GREAT?
they wereBY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN ithin two now beenOn Friday afternoon, in the midst of a Twitter back-and-forth on subjects ranging from okesmanRussia’s alleged interference in the U.S. elecet duringtions to Hillary Clinton’s popular-vote marwill meetgin, I asked former state representative Mike ur times,Hager—until last year, the House majority eduled asleader—since he wanted Donald Trump to, as the saying goes, Make America Great Again, e cause ofwhen he thought America was last great. ning staff His answer, in Twitterese: “after They have1/20/2008 = not great, after 1/20/2017 = d possiblygreat.” (I’m going to assume, based on the out untilcontext of our conversation, that he meant it.” January 20, 2009—not 2008—as the date ustrationAmerica became “not great,” since that was e of com-the date of Barack Obama’s inauguration.) the Octo- This was a remarkably illuminating hirts thatanswer, considering Hager was recently , 7 Com-one of the most powerful policy makers in betweenthe state. Consider, after all, what Ameriave beenca was like the day Obama swore the oath have beenof office. The unemployment rate was 7.9 e multiplepercent (it would rise to 10 percent nine use.) “Nomonths after he took office), and America hy it’s badlost 818,000 jobs that month alone. The Dow debatingJones Industrial Average had cratered to on’t know7,949. The federal deficit stood at $1.4 trilinks it’s alion. The country’s GDP was shrinking at a rate of 6.3 percent. Foreclosure filings had issue hasspiked by 221 percent between 2006 and ’d say I’m2008, and the real estate market had all but omethingcollapsed. Roughly 15 percent of Americans ays Brentwere without health insurance. And, needtask forceless to say, the U.S. was bogged down in long, istrictingbloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, its ent aboutinternational reputation in ruins. rt, if they This, according to Hager, was the last time America achieved greatness. Accordortive ofing to reality, however, the country George side withW. Bush bequeathed Obama was an unmitis. “What-gated disaster. n to sup- Now consider what it’s like some tweno throughty-nine hundred days later, as Obama prehese citi-pares to turn over the most powerful position n it, ‘Nah,on earth to former reality TV star Donald point youTrump. Unemployment: 4.6 percent, with al feelings216,000 jobs created in November (a record nity.” eighty-first consecutive month of privateyweek.comsector job growth). The Dow: flirting with
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20,000. The deficit: $587 billion, down more than $800 million from 2009. GDP increased by a healthy 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2016. September 2016 marked a 129-month low in foreclosure filings. Thanks to the nowendangered Affordable Care Act, by 2015 thirteen million more Americans had health insurance. And we wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and extended an olive branch to Cuba and Iran, the latter of which Bush included in his “axis of evil.” This isn’t to say the Obama presidency has been flawless—far from it. We’ve seen the rise of ISIS and drone assassinations, encroachments on civil liberties and the prosecutions of whistleblowers, the unfolding disaster in Syria and Russian incursions into both the Ukraine and American elections. We saw a president who unwisely yielded to Republican demands for austerity and whose administration took a pass on prosecuting war criminals and banksters. There are also ongoing issues related to income inequality, criminal justice reform, and the frightening rise of the authoritarianism-and-racism-streaked populism that gave us Donald Trump. But by nearly every metric, the country Trump will inherit January 20 is in better shape than it was eight years ago. So, as I asked Hager, what was it about the Obama years that represented a period of not-greatness, a hellscape from which Trump must save us? Hager’s response—an alleged trampling of the First, Second, and Tenth Amendments, plus Benghazi—was reflexive piffle, but I suspect no real answer stands up to scrutiny—to the actual facts of Obama’s record, rather than the version propagated by the Fox News set. Obama’s not the guy talking about opening up libel laws, and you can still receive an assault rifle for Christmas. States’ “rights” to discriminate against transgender students, restrict African Americans’ ballot access, and spew carbon into the atmosphere have indeed come under attack. Unlike Hager— and most of his North Carolina Republican colleagues—I don’t think that’s a bad thing. jbillman@indyweek.com
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Roy Cooper
vs. the World The new gov took office this week. Here are five things we hope he’ll do. By Paul Blest 10 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
E
arly Sunday morning, while most of us were still toasting the New Year, Roy Cooper swore an oath to become the seventy-fifth governor of the state of North Carolina. It’s been an eventful month for Cooper since he officially became governor-elect on December 5, the day Governor McCrory finally conceded. In that time, there have been three special sessions: one to pass a relief package for victims of Hurricane Matthew, another (called the same day) to strip Cooper of some of his powers and hand them to the legislature and Republicans on the Council of State, and the failed attempt to repeal HB 2. So, even before he took office, Cooper was given a taste of what Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have in store for him; given the duo’s gerrymandered dominance of the General Assembly, it’s not going to get easier for the new governor anytime soon. Still, progressives shouldn’t forget that it was with their help that a Democrat was elected governor, albeit by the narrowest of margins, in a year in which Donald Trump won the state of North Carolina with relative ease and Democrats elsewhere were decimated. With that in mind, we came up with a wish list—ways Cooper should wield his power to counter both the new federal government and the General Assembly, and what he should do to protect the state’s most vulnerable—of what we want to see out of the Executive Mansion over the next four years.
1.
Take on the federal government— and the General Assembly
If there’s one lesson North Carolina Dems could take from the last eight years of Republican governors taking President Obama to court—over everything from coal-ash emission regulations to the federal government’s directive to schools to accommodate transgender students—it’s that the states can be the frontlines of defense against the Trump administration. No one should know this better than Cooper, the state’s attorney general for sixteen years. Cooper played a different role than the one he’ll need his successor, Josh Stein, to play; when McCrory and the legislature were sued over Amendment 1 and HB 2, Cooper refused to defend them, forcing the state to spend millions on outside counsel to prop up indefensible laws. Stein, like Cooper, is a Democrat, which means that the governor’s office and the attorney general’s office will be able to coordinate legal action against a federal government that will, for instance, likely gut environmental regulations. As evidenced by the legislative attack on his powers as governor last month— among other things, his cabinet appointments will have to be approved by the Senate, and some education oversight powers have been transferred to new Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson—Cooper will have to deal with his own backyard as well. McCrory provided him with a precedent: McCrory v. Berger, the 2016 case about the Coal Ash Commission. In that 6–1 N.C. Supreme Court decision, Chief Justice Mark Martin wrote that the General Assembly “exerted too much control over commissions that have final executive authority. By doing so, it has prevented the governor from performing his express constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.” Cooper can challenge the legislature when it tries to take away that “express constitutional duty,” starting with the powers lawmakers have already stripped. “I think that there’s an argument that can certainly be made that the legislation passed in the special session violated the Constitution,” says N.C. Justice Center executive director Rick Glazier, a former Democratic state representative. “I think there are further arguments that the bills passed in the [session] were unconstitu-
tional under several provisions of the N.C. Constitution.” Indeed, the Republican-controlled State Board of Education sued the legislature last week over the transferring of some of its powers to Johnson; a Superior Court judge temporarily blocked the law last Thursday. And on Friday, Cooper filed a lawsuit to stop the legislature’s Republican-friendly changes to the State Board of Elections; again, a judge temporarily halted the law. Beyond these issues, Cooper will certainly have no lack of battles to fight. “A lot of it has to do with his ability to use the bully pulpit, to create administrative regulations, his willingness to take the legislature to court when necessary—and in his ability to negotiate,” Glazier says. “There are issues where he and the legislature do have general agreement and can negotiate good policy.”
2.
Stand up for immigrants and refugees
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last November, McCrory called on President Obama to stop sending Syrian refugees to North Carolina. Cooper backed the McCrory and Trump position, saying in a statement, “I support asking the federal government to pause refugee entries to make sure we have the most effective screening process possible so our humanitarian efforts are not hijacked.” The statement was remarkably squishy, even for Cooper, a centrist Democrat if there ever was one. Here are the facts: since 2011, when unrest began in Syria, North Carolina has accepted 768 refugees from Syria, according to the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System. In the same period, the state accepted 1,293 refugees from Iraq. Syrian refugees go through an intense vetting process, which a senior administration official told Time is the “most rigorous screening of any traveler to the U.S.” All of this underscores an important point: those fleeing Syria are fleeing because of ISIS, not because they’re in it. Some pro-immigrant activists say Cooper’s track record with undocumented immigrants has been similarly lackluster. In January 2014, his office sent an advisory letter stating that state law would have to be changed in order for undocumented students residing in North Carolina under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—an Obama policy granting two-
year reprieves from deportation to undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors—to receive in-state tuition, even if they’ve lived in the state for most of their lives. A group of student activists later accused Cooper of “throwing immigrant students under the bus.” “What is he going to do to counter the evil of white supremacist Donald Trump?” activist and undocumented immigrant Viridiana Martinez asks. “He can start out by supporting equal access to higher education for DACA holders and immigrant youth and also supporting an initiative for driving permits for undocumented people.” Martinez isn’t convinced Cooper will come through, especially given the fact that his office backed the N.C. School of Math and Science earlier this year when it denied admission to a DACA student. “So, he’s already kind of taken a side,” she says. “He’s being a Dixiecrat. He’s not being crazy like Trump, but his actions sure as hell let us know what kind of antiimmigrant politician he is.”
3.
Go on the offensive on LGBTQ rights
Over the past four years, the General Assembly has launched repeated assaults on LGBTQ rights, including the sinceoverturned Amendment 1, a law that allows magistrates to refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, and, of course, HB 2. Cooper thought he’d scored a big win prior to taking office when he brokered a deal for the city of Charlotte to repeal its nondiscrimination ordinance in exchange for a repeal of HB 2. You know what happened next: McCrory called a special session for December 21, Berger tried to attach a “cooling-off period” to the repeal, preventing cities from passing new nondiscrimination ordinances, Senate Democrats balked, and the deal fell apart. For now, it looks like HB 2 will be solved in the courts, although the possibility remains that Republicans could cave against mounting pressure from the business community. But if Cooper really wants to force the issue, he could take some pressure off the state’s more progressive municipalities and come out for statewide nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. “I would love for there to be laws that cover the entire state, but if there are not, INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 11
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then I’ll take whatever opportunity I have to at least protect residents of Durham,” says Durham city council member Jillian Johnson. Carrboro alderman Damon Seils wants the new administration to back local control of these issues, which HB 2 overrode. “I hope [Cooper and Stein] would not defend HB 2 and legislation like it against challenges, whether they come from local governments,” he says. “Looking beyond that, I would hope they could come out in favor of their local governments to do what’s in the best interest of their communities.” Equality NC executive director Chris Sgro, a former state representative, says that the conversation needs to stay focused on HB 2 until it’s happened. “I am hopeful that the Cooper administration recognizes that, above and beyond the economic impact that HB 2 has had on North Carolina, that it provides real harm to gay and transgender North Carolinians every single day,” Sgro says. “The unfortunate reality is that in order for that to be most meaningful, the focus needs to be on the repeal of HB 2.”
4.
Make North Carolina government transparent
Corruption and transparency have been problematic on both sides of the aisle in North Carolina: former Democratic governor Mike Easley and former House Speaker Jim Black both pleaded guilty to felonies related to campaign finance illegalities, and outgoing Republican state senator Fletcher Hartsell was indicted in September on six counts of money laundering, five counts of mail fraud, and three counts of wire fraud. Part of the problem is that the way North Carolina’s government conducts its business isn’t conducive to transparency. The McCrory administration repeatedly fought attempts, including by this paper, to obtain public records, and his lawyers made the case that McCrory was protected by “sovereign immunity” and couldn’t be sued to hand over public records. (The Court of Appeals didn’t buy that argument.) Meanwhile, legislators—like others around the country—have routinely asserted legislative privilege when it comes to releasing emails and schedules. When the Associated Press asked for the
schedules and emails from Berger, Moore, Democratic Senate leader Dan Blue, and House Democratic leader Larry Hall for the first week of last February, they got nothing from Hall, only a few emails (and no schedules) from Berger and Moore, and nearly five hundred emails from Blue. Given that the most controversial things the legislature did this year—HB 2 and eroding Cooper’s powers—were dropped on the public at a moment’s notice, Cooper would do himself well to set his administration apart not only from McCrory, but from Berger and Moore as well. “It benefits the governor to have as transparent a process and administration as possible,” Glazier says. “I think it’s instrumental in regaining public confidence. Being transparent, being responsive to public records requests, holding town halls across the state, more press conferences, all of that is part and parcel” of being a successful governor.
5.
Pursue aggressive environmental policies
Over the past four years, Cooper’s predecessor, a former Duke Energy executive, undermined efforts to combat pollution and environmental degradation. After his former company’s coal ash spilled into the Dan River in February 2014, McCrory’s regulators took two and a half years to settle on a paltry $6 million fine for what the Southern Environmental Law Center called “thousands of obvious violations of law.” Another fine against Duke Energy over groundwater contamination at a plant in Wilmington was reduced from $25.1 million to $7 million in 2015. Then, after state toxicologist Ken Rudo testified in a deposition that the administration deliberately misled people who live near coal ash ponds about the quality of their drinking water, the administration embarked on a smear campaign against Rudo that resulted in the resignation of state epidemiologist Megan Davies, who said in a resignation letter that she couldn’t “work for a Department and an Administration that deliberately misleads the public.” As attorney general, Cooper didn’t go along with McCrory’s push to render environmental regulations toothless. Of the twenty-six states that signed on to the lawsuit fighting Obama administration regulations on coal plants, for example, North Carolina was the only one not represented
“It benefits the governor to have as transparent a process and administration as possible.”
by its attorney general. Representative Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, an outspoken environmental advocate, says reforming the Department of Environmental Quality will be essential. The transition from Governor Bev Purdue’s administration to McCrory’s more business-friendly approach, Harrison says, was “just a wholesale shift in attitude. Everything McCrory stood for, Cooper will be the complete opposite when it comes to environmental protections.” Cooper’s job will be to hold corporations like Duke accountable, to prepare North Carolina for the coming storm of climate change, and to once again base policy decisions on science and the best interests of
the state’s environment rather than ideology. That means replacing schemes like SolarBees—the failed $1.4 million project to stop algae growth in Jordan Lake—with real environmental rules that make local governments and developers pay to reduce nutrient pollution. “The hope is that the Cooper administration restores public trust in this agency that’s supposed to protect environment and our public health,” says Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Matthew Starr. “I don’t think anyone can disagree that, in order to get cleaner water, you need to stop the pollution, not mask the pollution once it’s already there.” pblest@indyweek.com
INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 13
The KaPaYow Band performs at the final free Local Band Local Beer on December 29, 2016.
BANDS, BEERS, AND BUCKS
A FLAGGING FREE MUSIC SERIES IN RALEIGH, LOCAL BAND LOCAL BEER, NOW HAS A COVER CHARGE. CAN THE NEW MODEL PICK UP THE SLACK? S T O R Y B Y D AV I D K L E I N
T
en years ago, a Raleigh bartender teamed up with the station manager at N.C. State’s student-run radio station, WKNC-FM, to put together a new kind of live music series. On a weekly basis, two or three acts from the local talent pool would be paired with one of the area’s ever-growing number of breweries for a night of beer and music, with no admission fee. The setting was Tir Na Nog, an Irish pub, not a traditional rock club—at first a tough sell to get bands interested— but the series took off, making good on its promise that two or three bands could play a free show and still be paid well. As important, Local Band Local Beer made good on its goal of bringing new people downtown and exposing a new audience to all the great music in the area. Black metal, roots rock, indie rock, hip-hop, and singer-songwriters all found a welcoming space on the Tir Na Nog stage and on that of the Pour House, where the series moved after Tir Na Nog closed down in 2015. On December 21, fans who have flocked to the shows over the years got a bit of a jolt when the series’s current 14 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
P H OT O BY B E N M CK E OW N
organizers announced that they would begin charging a five-dollar admission fee in the new year. In the announcement, Pour House owner Adam Lindstaedt said the change was based on a desire to provide better pay for the bands, an implicit admission that the series was no longer able to consistently compensate the musicians fairly. But will a five-dollar cover charge save the series or backfire? For most of its existence, Local Band Local Beer has worked surprisingly well. Kelly Reid was the music director for WKNC when she began collaborating with Chris Tamplin, a bartender at Tir Na Nog, a capacious Irish pub on South Blount Street. The restaurant presented live music regularly—mostly cover outfits or Irish music— but Tamplin reasoned the bar could handle one night a week as a venue for fresh, up-and-coming bands. The radio station would promote the series through airplay and interviews with the acts. Local breweries would rotate to provide samples of their wares. Local Band Local Beer opened in a Raleigh that had a paucity of dedicated music venues and had seen the recent closing of a major live-music hub, Kings. The
scene was rife with bands itching for a chance to show their stuff, but too few stages to do it on. Even so, Tamplin had to convince bands to take a chance at playing for an uncertain amount of money, in a venue that wasn’t as cool as a rock club. But he could offer a solid PA system, not to mention Jac Cain, whom Kelly Reid calls “the best sound man in Raleigh,” both key elements in a band being able to put its best foot forward for an audience. Partnering with WKNC proved crucial to the early success—the station was truly plugged in to the local scene and funneled a stream of talent toward the Tir Na Nog stage. Reid says the series brought together elements that collectively filled a niche. “I think it worked really well in the beginning because everyone that took part in it had nothing to lose,” she says. “KNC was just trying it out, Tir Na Nog was just trying it out, and Big Boss, which was the main brewery that did the most samples and promotion as far as rotation of beers each week, had nothing to lose. We were all just trying to make it.” Reid says the diverse makeup of the Tir Na Nog crowd
bands. Reed estimates all three acts received also contributed to the series’s success. She between $150 and $250—an OK take, but do reckons that a third of the patrons were there the math: with four hundred paying customto see specific bands, a third came for the ers, the bands would have done much better. series itself, and the final third, “accidentals,” James Hepler is a drummer with I Was just happened upon the pub and came in. Totally Destroying It, a power-pop outfit that With its open windows, Tir Na Nog enabled played the series in its original setting. He passersby to see the band playing onstage sees the shift to an admission policy as a and invited people to stop in and investigate. necessity. That’s gone now, and Reid says it's one of the “Tir Na Nog didn’t live or die by show attenreasons the series is suffering. dance,” he says. “So I can see why Pour House “It’s not a destination to simply hang out,” wants to change. We need to support venues she says, unlike a spot that offers food and the same way we support bands." atmosphere. “No one says, ‘Let’s go to The Reed says the shift is also a result of the Pour House and hang out.’” evolution of the city itself. Raleigh's different Reid also points out that, initially, LBLB than it was in 2006, and not everyone drinks, offered bands something that wasn’t availhe points out. able elsewhere. In the Raleigh of 2017, music “I have plenty of friends who don’t venues abound. What made the series disdrink, and I’m sure if five dollars is going tinct initially was its novel setting. to go to the band, they’re more than happy “The cool thing was a certain lack of forto pay it. That’s really my end goal: just mality—that it wasn’t a music venue made try to compensate musicians the way I it accessible to everyone,” Reid says, addfeel they should be compensated," Reed ing that after the restaurant shuttered, the says. He adds that if he can strengthen series would have been better off in another his own bargaining unorthodox location power through offerlike a brewpub or a ing bands better paybottle shop. LOCAL BAND LOCAL BEER: outs, he can leverage “Shit, put it at a bike DEFACTO THEZPIAN, that to bring in bigstore,” she says. SOUTH ROME, JOOSELORD ger acts to the Pour Another key facMAGNUS, ALEX AFF, House’s stage. tor is that, throughout DANNY BLAZE It all makes sense the series’s existence, The Pour House, Raleigh on paper, and series bands have been paid Thursday, Jan. 5, 9:30 p.m., $3–$5 cofounder Reid allows based on a percentage www.thepourhousemusichall.com that, at the beginof bar sales, a system ning, the free admisthat worked better at sion helped the series Tir Na Nog than in the along. But she thinks the shift to an admiscurrent location. Craig Reed, who has booked sion policy as a way to pay bands better is Local Band Local Beer since 2013, and Reid missing the point. agree that’s part of the problem. “It’s not about the money—for the bands, “Tir Na Nog was a nine-thousand-foot the radio station, or the venue. You have this space,” says Reed. “You had dinner clients, little petri dish with three things that are difother events going on, a much larger space ferent. Radio, band, restaurant-slash-beer— as far as capacity goes, so it’s different from they each have their own select audience, a pure music venue.” As a result, a patron but when you mix them together you get this sitting at the bar watching football unknowcross-pollination. It’s about the long-term ingly contributed a percentage of his or her growth,” she says. tab to the band. “So if you’re fixated on the money, it’s not And with that system comes a vulnerabilgoing to be successful in the long run," Reid ity to the vicissitudes of the drinking masses. continues. "If a band gains fifteen new fans, A band will do better with a heavy-drinkthat, in the long run, is going to help them ing crowd of a hundred than if two hundred more than fifty dollars at the door." people had showed up but weren’t drinking No one can assail the goal of compenas much. The new admission policy, Reed sating bands fairly, and whether the series says, is meant to reverse the paradigm of can become strong again at the Pour House band pay being directly correlated to how under a paying model remains to be seen. much people drink. He says the old system But it’s clear that Local Band Local Beer has worked when it worked, but it was inherently to find a way to make it worthwhile for the flawed. Take, for example, a recent Thursbands that play there. Raleigh would be all day evening in late December, when more the poorer if the series loses its footing. than four hundred people showed up to see dklein@indyweek.com Dark Water Rising, Brothers Egg, and Kate Rhudy. Because the bar did well, so did the INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 15
FINDER
on stands
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THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE
now
indyfood
Amore for Amaro
WE BEG LOCAL BARTENDERS TO MIX US MOODY WINTER COCKTAILS WITH BITTERSWEET CYNAR BY KIM LAN GROUT
A lime garnish brightens up the Italian Buck cocktail at Gocciolina. PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
I
f you think you haven’t tried Cynar (pronounced chee-nar), you’re probably wrong. Local bartenders are building cocktails using this versatile Italian amaro, which packs a powerful punch as Campari’s kid brother. The underrated liqueur is slowly joining the trendy ranks of Fernet and Aperol, lending graceful depth and complexity to cocktails with its bitter, buttery earthiness.
Relatively new on the alcohol scene (post Prohibition), Cynar was created in Italy in 1949. Unlike Campari, which begs for scorching hot days and warm summer nights, Cynar is best in boozier autumn and winter, perfect when paired with falling leaves, lit fireplaces, and hearty meals. Even with just a dash of Cynar, the flavors of classic cocktails enter a new realm. The chemical properties of cynarin, found in arti-
chokes, inhibit taste receptors, making foods and drinks seem sweeter. It works well as the Italians intended: as a digestif served after a meal. After the glut of holiday food, let your Cynar cocktail be both digestif and dessert. Its vegetal flavors and espresso-like bittersweetness build on the decadence of indulgences such as eggnog or chocolate. And while Cynar is complex on the palate, it’s low in alcohol (16.5 percent ABV), mak-
ing it great for seasoned and newbie drinkers alike. It gives the same warm, fuzzy feeling as whiskey in an Old Fashioned, but without the wince and burn. And, at about twenty dollars a bottle, it’s one of the more affordable liqueurs, lending an accessible complexity to any home bar. I went on a quest to find the best Cynar cocktails in the area and encountered quite a few bartenders up to the challenge. Durham’s INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 17
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Alley Twenty Six uses it in its signature drink, the Alley Cocktail, which is a spin on the Manhattan. The Cynar raises the classic cocktail’s notes of cherries and butter. Bartenders Taran Rosenthal and Colin Cushman also effortlessly whip up a slew of newer Cynar-focused cocktails for me. One of the most memorable is Rosenthal’s inspired iteration of the Search for the Delicious, a cocktail that began as the Bitter Giuseppe out of Chicago and has been reimagined by bartenders around the country. Try to Google the most commonly used recipe and you’ll just be drinking disappointment; everybody’s added a new twist of his or her own. Rosenthal’s take finishes with silky chocolate notes. Cushman then serves the better-known Cynar Flip, the result of an involved process that includes an entire raw egg whipped up into a frothy, creamy frenzy. It is the most pleasant surprise of the night and tastes distinctly of Christmas. Wes Tise, bartender at Durham’s Italian restaurant Gocciolina, shows off just how versatile Cynar can be. He starts with what’s on the menu, the Italian Buck, made with lime juice, ginger beer, and equal parts Cynar and Amaro Montenegro. The Italian Buck is refreshing in an old-school-Coke-on-a-summer-day way. It’s sweet but not saccharine, with a bite at the finish thanks to the ginger beer. What Tise creates next is the Italian Buck’s sexy alter ego: Mexico Burns Red. Its colors are deep and dark, showcasing Cynar’s pretty rusted hues. Equal parts Cynar, Aperol, and mezcal, Mexico Burns Red is intensely smoky, as if Tise had bottled a bonfire and served it over ice. With each sip, the flavors transform on the tongue for what seems like minutes. It’s the drink that keeps on giving. At Hillsborough’s LaPlace Louisiana Cookery, bartender Jay Jackson doles out several of his own Cynar creations, each better than the last: deeper, more evolved, and more fun, just as a night bellied up at the bar should be. The Empire City’s apparent notes of allspice are really the Cynar complementing the Madeira-esque walnut wine and the Wild Turkey 101 bourbon. The Cynar Swizzle is as fun as it sounds, served over violently crushed ice that makes the drink look like a sno-cone for adults. A subtle bitterness eventually follows the initial fruity sweetness, making this a great transitional drink for those interested in trying something new without going wild.
“Your average Bud Light guys? Yeah, they’re not gonna be Cynar fans.” Jackson’s last Cynar creation is mindblowing, with brut cava and Punt e Mes vermouth, garnished with an orange wedge and a green olive. The first sip leaves me fumbling for descriptions beyond “delicious.” The sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and bubbly dance on my tongue like Pop Rocks. Jackson helps me find the right words, saying, “It’s bittersweet bubbly, crisp, citrusy … best paired with a bittersweet breakup.” And just like that, a new cocktail, the Bittersweet Goodbye, is born. Next door at the no-frills Wooden Nickel, I visit bartenders Britton Murray and Tony Rignolay to see what they can do with Cynar. Murray throws together the Artichoke Slam, which includes mezcal (I sense a theme), lime juice, and jalapeño syrup. “That’s the slam part!” explains Murray. It’s amazing, maybe even my favorite so far, but it doesn’t quite fit in at the Wooden Nickel. “We’re not much of a cocktail bar,” Murray says, before he returns to serving beers on tap to patrons watching UNC play Indiana. The smell of the pub’s famous poutine tots wafts out of the kitchen and reminds me where I am. I look to Rignolay and ask him to make a Cynar drink that captures the essence of the Wooden Nickel. He thinks for a minute before pouring an ounce or two in a pint glass, then fills the glass the rest of the way with Argus Ginger Perry cider. It’s simple and I like it, a great gamewatching drink, filling as a pint of cold beer but with more nuance. Murray, ever the explainer, comes back over to tell me Cynar isn’t, and likely won’t ever be, popular at the Wooden Nickel, though they still stock it. “Your average Bud Light guys? Yeah, they’re not gonna be Cynar fans.” But after gulping it down in various cocktails, fancy and not, I’d tell those guys to give Cynar a shot. food@indyweek.com
food [
PIE PUSHERS
EAT THIS ]
117 West Main Street, Durham www.piepushers.com
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It’s All Gravy
PIE PUSHERS ADDS A DECADENT SOUTHERN TAKE ON POUTINE TO THEIR WINTER MENU BY ALLISON HUSSEY
at gamecold beerGet your stretchy pants ready: Pie Pushers’ poutine PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER ever the me Cynar ular at thePie Pushers owners Becky Cascio and Mike hours on the weekends, too. For the winter, stock it.Hacker spent five and a half years flexing Pie Pushers has pushed its sausage gravy ah, they’retheir pizza-making muscles in a tiny food onto its Main Street menu in a new, deeply gulping ittruck before expanding this year into a bricksatisfying take on poutine, a Canadian staple nd not, I’dand-mortar operation above The Pinhook. combining French fries, cheese curds, and gravy. It’s the comfort food to end all comBut devotees know they sling a mean bisyweek.comcuits-and-gravy during breakfast and brunch fort foods.
Pie Pushers’ poutine is quite literally not for the faint of heart. It closely resembles their weekend brunch spuds, minus an egg or bacon on top. But the potatoes are deep-fried, so they’re a little crispier. A thick layer of sausage gravy pillows a heaping pile of potato wedges. Melted cheddar cheese embraces the whole mess, which is finished with a smattering of sliced green onions. The massive serving size is definitely not good for you, but you’ll forget about that after a bite or two. “If you’re a little hungover, that’s the perfect size for you. Then you can go sit on the couch and watch Netflix. But maybe it’s a nice size for two to share. It’s date food,” Hacker jokes. Transplants from the Northeast might recognize the sausage gravy poutine as a close cousin to disco fries, a Jersey diner specialty where French fries are topped with brown gravy and melted mozzarella or provolone. But despite the dish’s moniker, Pie Pushers’ poutine doesn’t have the element that’s usually central: cheese curds. Hacker, who’s responsible for the gravy recipe, doesn’t think it’s a make-or-break factor. “In the Midwest, you won’t find it any other way,” he says. “But I feel like in this area, not everyone knows what poutine is, so I can kind of get away with what I want. Honestly, if we’re going traditional, there shouldn’t be sausage gravy, either. It should be chicken stock gravy. Everything’s going to be a little twist.” The gravy is the not-so-secret key to the poutine’s tastiness—it’s hard to mess up cheese and potatoes, after all. Hacker’s recipe includes red pepper flakes and thyme, but he says what really makes great gravy is the sausage. Pie Pushers uses local country sausage from Durham’s Firsthand Foods. “The gravy changes based on the kind of sausage you get,” Hacker says. “The rest of it is just cream, milk, or whatever, some stock in there if you’re feeling frisky, some herbs. But really, it’s the sausage.” Even if you share it with a friend or three, the sausage gravy poutine is going to slow you down—Hacker says the brunch spuds on the truck earned the nickname “the backto-bed boat.” But whether you’re having a decadently lazy day or just need to dig into something heavy and comforting, Pie Pushers’ gravy train will get you where you want to go. ahussey@indyweek.com
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The INDY’s Guide to Dining in the Triangle
The INDY’s guide to Triangle Dining ON THE STREETS NOW!
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t twenty-five, Sierra Hull is one of the brightest young stars in bluegrass—and one of its best instrumentalists to boot. Having studied the mandolin since childhood, the Tennessee native took home the trophy for mandolin player of the year at October’s International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, and Hull’s latest record, last year’s excellent Weighted Mind, just earned a Grammy nomination for best folk album. It’s an effortlessly graceful album that finds Hull flexing her songwriting chops alongside her mandolin muscle, but it didn’t come easy: Hull scrapped her earliest sessions for the project and started over from scratch. She discussed her lifelong love of her instrument, as well as the valuable life lesson she found in her record’s reboot.
SIERRA HULL
Friday, Jan. 6, 8 p.m., $29–$31 Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh www.dukeenergycenterraleigh.com
Eight Strings Is Enough
MANDOLIN WHIZ SIERRA HULL STARTS FROM SCRATCH ON HER GREAT NEW ALBUM, WEIGHTED MIND BY ALLISON HUSSEY
MANDOLIN I happen to love that instrument! I really didn’t start on mandolin. I thought originally that I wanted to be a fiddle player and got one for Christmas. It was a little too big for my hands at the time—it was a full-size. My dad was learning to play mandolin a little bit at the time, and because the tuning is alike, he said, “Well, let me show you a couple things on the mandolin.” For whatever reason, I just fell in love with it immediately and have always loved the sound of the instrument. It’s still my favorite instrument. I went on to play guitar and things like octave mandolin more, more pick-based instruments, but never really became a fiddle player. Maybe one day. IBMA IBMA is a pretty special organization to me. I first started going to the event when they hosted it in Louisville, Kentucky, when I was about nine years old. I’d only been playing mandolin a year. For me, that was the biggest thing I’d ever been to like that. I got to meet Sam Bush and play a few tunes with him, and I got to meet Earl Scruggs that year. To see some of my heroes perform and to meet them for the first time—I’d never been to an event like that that had so many people that I adored running around. That was exciting, and I got to play in front of probably the biggest crowd I’d ever played to at that point. COMPASS I wrote that song [“Compass,” Weighted Mind’s second track] and immediately felt like what it had to say would be
Sierra Hull PHOTO BY GINA BINKLEY a good way to kick off an album, lyrically. The song is kind of all about stepping out without fear and trying to lay your doubt aside, and just trust that whatever’s meant to happen will be OK. I kind of felt like
that was the theme of the way I was feeling around releasing this album and trying to find my way through whatever my next musical direction was going to be. I wrote that song, and it felt like an automatic
theme for the entire project, in a way. It wasn’t the first one out of the batch of all the songs, but it was definitely one of the earlier ones. RESTART The whole process was a little bit difficult, because I wasn’t feeling satisfied emotionally. Five of the six tracks that we did were versions of the songs that also made it on to what became Weighted Mind. I learned a lot through making this record, because there’s a certain amount of holding things for yourself that’s important when you’re in the middle of a creative process. If you’re too open in sharing every step of the process, it’s easy to get too much feedback— feedback that’s not necessarily helping you get anywhere. I started doubting my own convictions for the album and started thinking about, “Well, this person’s worried about this, and this person would like to see this happen.” That whole process, emotionally, just put me in a place where I really had to push it aside, which eventually led to starting over, essentially. There was still already a foundation, so to speak. I don’t think Weighted Mind would’ve been what it is if I hadn’t have gone through all of that, either. I look at it as a valuable experience, even though it was somewhat of an annoying one to have to go through as an artist. GRAMMYS I think just getting nominated for a Grammy is, at least I would imagine, a dream for any kind of performer in any genre. It’s something you hope someday will happen, and it’s really exciting because it’s the first time for me. It was really, really exciting to get that news. I’m excited for the show. I like all kinds of different styles of music, and honestly, I’m a big Beyoncé fan. I’m a fan of Adele. I’m excited that they’re going to be two of the biggest performers there. I’m looking forward to the production of it. It’s so different from what I do on a regular basis. The music I play and the show I have isn’t really that kind of thing, so I think I’m just fascinated by all that. It’ll be really fun to have a ticket to the show and see what everybody does. At IBMA, it would be weird if everybody was dancing around on the stage doing all this stuff—that’s not really the nature of the energy and the vibe of what acoustic and bluegrass music really lends itself to. ahussey@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 21
music
ELVIS FEST 2017
Friday, Jan. 6 & Saturday, Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m., $12 Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro www.catscradle.com
Elvis! Elvis! Let Me Be!
HOW MY CHILDHOOD LOVE OF A PROBLEMATIC ICON TAUGHT ME TO QUESTION AUTHORITY AND CHERISH THE BLUES BY ALLISON HUSSEY Almost two years ago, while discussing Gillian Welch’s song “Elvis Presley Blues” with the INDY, folk song slinger Jake Xerxes Fussell noted that “when you start thinking about Elvis, it’s hard to stop thinking about Elvis.” Though the observation was just a passing riff on the song’s opening line, it stuck with me. I’d already been thinking about Elvis for a long time. As a child, I developed a mysterious, intense adoration of Elvis. Nobody knows why. He’d been dead for nearly two decades by then, a fact that my family fretted over— they thought it would traumatize me to learn that I’d never get to meet my idol. One of my strongest early memories is of my grandparents taking me to see an Elvis impersonator named Eddie Miles in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A woman there gave me a laminated copy of Elvis’s driver’s license, and I cherished it. I was four or five years old, and Elvis paraphernalia populated my life for several more years. As a teenager, I confessed my Elvis obsession, which had cooled considerably by then, to a guitar teacher named Max Drake who was trying to suss out my tastes. It was fine by him, a gruff and burly bald man who adored the blues and rockabilly, but he was the first person who told me that Presley’s “Hound Dog” wasn’t actually his; the song was originally written for and recorded by a black blueswoman named Big Mama Thornton. The following week, he returned with a CD-R of Thornton’s Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings, and I listened to it like my life depended on it. I played “Hound Dog” over and over again, wrapping my brain around Thornton’s swinging original and reveling in her fantastic, powerful voice. That song was my first big step toward understanding appropriation at large, as well as the more specific mechanisms by which white executives with money wield power in the music industry. The “perfect” object of my innocent fascination wasn’t so flawless after all, gold lamé tux or not. As disappointing as this revelation was, I 22 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
“The 'perfect' object of my innocent fascination wasn't so flawless after all.”
ILLUSTRATION BY SHAN STUMPF
didn’t feel betrayed. Rather, it fueled my curiosity about the underdogs of rock ’n’ roll— indeed, the underdogs of American music in general. Max continued to be a helpful resource as he guided me toward the likes
of Memphis Minnie and other lesser-sung heroes. Even when I quit taking lessons, I still spent a significant amount of time digging deeper into American roots music and expanding my horizons. Elvis, for all his faults,
still ended up being a vital starting point for my burgeoning, lifelong love of music. Still, Elvis will forever be my most problematic fave. He’s been dead for nearly forty years, but he’s not going anywhere. He set the mold for the pop star as a single-named icon who absorbs backing musicians and songwriting credits into a larger-than-life aura, one that could be reinvented over and over to suit its era while retaining its essential core. Throughout all his phases—fifties heartthrob, jailhouse greaser, bejeweled and bloated crooner—Elvis was always Elvis. Beyond music, Elvis’s image still permeates pop culture as a whole—hell, even the demolition derby at the North Carolina State Fair features an unconvincing Elvis impersonator who serenades the crowd between bouts of destruction. And this weekend, to celebrate what would have been Elvis’s eighty-second birthday, people around the world will be partying in his honor. The twoday Elvis Fest comes to the Cat’s Cradle Back Room. Later this month, Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium is hosting an “Elvis Lives” tribute night. These days, I don’t hold Elvis in as high esteem as I did twenty years ago, but loving him taught me that it’s not always a bad thing to kill your idols. Doing so can, in fact, teach you more about the world than you ever expected. I probably won’t ever stop thinking about Elvis, who served as my gateway from childhood innocence to the murkier waters of adulthood. And that’s OK. ahussey@indyweek.com
indyart
PANORAMA: NORTH CAROLINA Through Feb. 12, free North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh www.ncartmuseum.org
To Be, Rather Than to Seem
PANORAMA CAPTURES LIFE IN OUR STATE THROUGH A LENS OF INTIMATE REALITY, NOT DRIVE-BY NOSTALGIA BY ERICA JOHNSON
John Rosenthal: "Valle Crucis, 1979" PHOTO © JOHN ROSENTHAL/COURTESY OF NCMA
On a lettuce farm in the hills of North Carolina, a groggy boy stood on a chair. His father, John Rosenthal, had woken him early to take his photo in the morning fog. The boy stretched his arms out wide and looked down into the kudzu-covered valley below. It was the summer of 1979. “I wanted to get a sense of this growing boy in an atmosphere that was just as dynamic,” Rosenthal says. He sees acceptance in the photo, as if the boy and his environment were “up for life”—which they certainly were. Although Rosenthal didn’t know it at the time, this would become one of his best-known pieces. Part of the North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection, it’s currently on view in Panorama: North Carolina, an exhibit of black-andwhite photos taken in the state by local photographers. In more than thirty photos, the
exhibit surveys the changes that have swept across rural North Carolina, casting light on an Old North State that seems in the perennial process of vanishing. “I was perfectly aware from a fairly early age that old North Carolina was disappearing pretty quickly,” says Rosenthal, who has lived here since 1960. “It certainly hasn’t disappeared yet, and it probably won’t ever disappear completely.” The power of Panorama is that these photographers were looking at contemporary lifestyles they knew intimately, in the present tense, sharply contrasting with nostalgic commercial images of fields and barns. They sought honest, not simply picturesque, representations of the state. But what is old North Carolina? Well, it’s not something with a single definition. It isn’t one lifestyle, area, or ideology. Instead,
it’s an ineffable nostalgia. It’s revisiting that Main Street coffee shop, using a worn-out map, eating a home-cooked meal. It’s the way home used to smell, feel, and sound. For photographer Rob Amberg, that means dirt roads, rural mailboxes, and, most vividly, tobacco leaves hanging in a worn barn. These things are plentiful in Madison County, North Carolina, where Amberg lives. There, the main points of interest are hiking trails and the tiny town of Marshall, but these are not subjects Amberg photographs much anymore. Amberg says it can be easy for a photographer to be seduced by nostalgic representations of North Carolina, ones that deny what it is today. Twenty years ago, when he took photos of barns, their purpose was to dry tobacco or house animals, not to simply look beautifully decayed. The photos represented
life as it was lived at the time. “The Old North State is changing,” he says. “I think that the representations really need to be changing with it. We need to be looking at what we have become now. Some of which is better, some of which is proving to be really questionable, I think.” Amberg captured the dirt road in his photograph “On the Road to Robert and Jane’s House” while he was actually on the road to Robert and Jane’s house. It was a scenic road he often walked on, not one he glimpsed from the highway and decided to photograph. What, after all, is the purpose of photographing something no one uses? A barn might sit on a sunny patch of land with a couple of dairy cows under the afternoon sun, but the lifestyle associated with the image is more sentimental than authentic because rural communities like Amberg’s no longer farm the way they once did. As factory farming populates the South and the classic family farm subsides, documentary photography must evolve, too. Amberg’s photo “Estate Auction,” not included in Panorama, illustrates the point. In it, a farmer holds up a painting of an old barn that is about to be auctioned along with the farmstead, capturing a reality in which family plots are giving way to company-owned industrial barns—a reality hidden in photos of a more idyllic nature. Panorama truthfully and intimately looks at what the Old North State was and is. In Amberg’s photo “Jim and Jenny Sledding,” a father and daughter charge downhill on a sled with a dog chasing behind. The slight blur makes it feel like looking at something beautiful that is about to disappear. A similar sense of evanescence is captured in Elizabeth Matheson’s “Wilson, North Carolina,” which shows an apocalyptic thunderstorm descending on two mirror-image homes. And “Edenton,” taken from the back porch of a home overlooking the water, feels less like a photo on the wall of a museum than a scene you are about to enter. The North Carolina state motto could easily double as a motto for documentary photography: “To be, rather than to seem.” With images ranging from highway signs to roadside watermelon salesmen, the photos in Panorama rise to the occasion. It’s their authenticity, not their aesthetics, that makes them beautiful. arts@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 23
indyscreen
HIDDEN FIGURES
HHH½ Opening Friday, Jan. 6
A MONSTER CALLS HHH Opening Friday, Jan. 6
White Flight
IN HIDDEN FIGURES, THREE WOMEN BLAST PAST RACISM IN THE SPACE RACE—PLUS, MESSILY EVER AFTER IN A MONSTER CALLS BY NEIL MORRIS & GLENN MCDONALD
A Monster Calls
PHOTO COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES
W
hen Donald Trump repeatedly referred to “the good old days” during the presidential campaign, he was basically dog-whistling the 1960s setting of HIDDEN FIGURES, a space movie that celebrates science and math—the real stuff behind The Right Stuff—with a terrific ensemble cast, particularly the three sterling leads. Based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s nonfiction book, it tells the little-known history of three African-American women’s contributions to the space race at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The women are mathematicians consigned to the center’s segregated West Area Computers division. Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), who was a child math prodigy in the backwoods of West Virginia, is now a widow with three kids of her own, thrust into the job of human computer for the all-white Space Task Group headed by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner). Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) oversees the allblack West division but longs for the dignity and recognition of being promoted to official supervisor. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) wants to be an aerospace engineer, but she 24 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
Hidden Figures
PHOTO BY HOPPER STONE/COURTESY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
can’t enroll in the all-white schools required for qualification. Director Theodore Melfi’s straightforward, feel-good approach has the whiff of a television movie. Despite the Jim Crow milieu, there’s nary an N-word in this PGrated presentation, likely to cast a net for
the broadest audience possible. The endemic racism on display is more understated but no less insidious: the dismissive glares, the admonitions to “get along now” and “don’t embarrass me.” Harrison asks why Johnson’s breaks are always so long, oblivious to the fact that the closest "colored" women's bathroom is half a mile away. “I have nothin’ against y’all,” says Vaughan’s icy boss (Kirsten Dunst). “I know you probably believe that,” Vaughan responds with a pursed smile. Sexism proves just as virulent. Women are given a strict dress code that forbids jewelry except for a string of pearls, and there’s no “protocol” for them to attend high-level planning meetings. Even Katherine’s suitor, Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali), is surprised NASA would give women jobs that are so “taxing.” Yet all three women persevere, breaking down barriers by making themselves indis-
pensable. Jackson convinces a judge to let her attend night classes at an all-white community college. Vaughan teaches herself the Fortran language necessary to operate the center’s new IBM mainframe. And Johnson’s math genius figures highly in the Project Mercury spaceflight program and John Glenn’s Mercury 6 orbital flight. It’s an oversimplification to say Hidden Figures is only about the indignities of racism and sexism. Melfi unsubtly makes the case that the Soviet Union's early space-race successes were the result of its seeming unity, while social fractures slowed America down until after the advances of the civil rights movement. The film argues that America is great when it embraces and incorporates its multicultural society rather than erecting barriers that stifle innovation and ostracize a deep reservoir of diverse talent. All year, commentators have sought antiTrump themes in films as varied as Rogue One, Moana, and Captain America: Civil War. On the eve of the inauguration, Hidden Figures provides the best example of, and argument for, building bridges instead of walls. —Neil Morris
INDY WEEK’S BAR + BEVERAGE
S
ince I became a parent, I’ve found that films that place kids in peril, or linger on their suffering, have a disproportionate effect on me. If the story is honest and artful, I’m a wreck and can barely see the screen through the blur of my tears. If the story is cheap or manipulative, an itchy anger starts percolating. Parents will move though both these phases during A MONSTER CALLS, a visually dazzling modern fable that puts its twelveyear-old protagonist in a cruel spot. Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall) is a deeply unhappy soul. Too old to be a kid, too young to be a man, he’s trying his best to take care of his mom (Felicity Jones), who is dying of cancer. She doesn’t want Conor to lose hope—the next treatment will work!—but he’s too sensitive and smart. He knows what’s up. Conor’s fears manifest nightly in a terrifying recurring dream, in which his mom is swallowed by the earth in the cemetery grounds outside his bedroom window. This is the film’s central image, and it’s devastating. Then, one night, the boundary between dreaming and waking is breached. A forty-foot-tall tree monster pulls itself from the graveyard, peers into Conor’s room, and begins spinning the first of three fables. These stories-within-the-story populate the rest of the film with a hallucinatory pageant of visual imagination. Director J.A. Bayona seamlessly blends music, animation, and digital effects to conjure a powerful dreamstate sensation. Between the tales, and after, the story returns to Conor’s waking world, where he must deal with a school bully, his cold grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), and his mother’s final days. The monster’s stories are clearly intended to be instructive parables for Conor’s benefit, but something’s wrong. They’re not helping. They don’t make sense. They certainly don’t end properly. And that, of course, is the point. “Sometimes love isn’t enough,” Conor is told. “Most of us just get messily ever after.” It’s a dark, compelling twist on the Disneyfied magical realism we usually get at the movies. So it’s a shame that Bayona doesn’t trust the material to land on its own. Too many sequences sag with redundant exposition and overwrought emotional cues, and the final scenes are nakedly manipulative. A Monster Calls earns its tears for the most part, but parents may find themselves getting itchy in the end. —Glenn McDonald arts@indyweek.com
MAGAZINE
ON STANDS FEBRUARY 22 RESERVE BY JANUARY 11
INDY WEEK’S BAR + BEVERAGE MAGAZINE
ON STANDS FEBRUARY 22 RESERVE BY JANUARY 11 INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 25
SOUTHERN ACCENT
On view through January 8
01.4–01.11
FINAL DAYS! Douglas Bourgeois, A New Place to Dwell (detail), 1987. Oil on panel; 14 x 18 inches (35.6 x 45.7 cm). Collection of Ronald Swartz and Ellen Johnson. Image courtesy of the artist and Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana. © Douglas Bourgeois.
2001 Campus Dr., Durham 27705
nasher.duke.edu/southern
Stacy Bloom Rexrode: “Bound Up” (detail)
ART
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
SUNDAY, JANUARY 8
STACY BLOOM REXRODE
If necessity doesn’t breed invention, it certainly prompts resourcefulness. Rather than valuing resourcefulness by default, Stacy Bloom Rexrode dissects it with a sharp feminist critique in her sculptural assemblage work, which is on display at Horace Williams House through the end of January. Beautiful and awful at once, Rexrode’s dense proliferations of household and craft items such as silk flowers, plastic plates, rope, and ribbon—all associated with women and “women’s work”—express a wave of American overconsumption as well as the tidal pullback of personal and cultural valuation. Rexrode’s construction prompts an openmouthed “How’d she do that?” But it’s her rigor that will haunt you, especially as holiday excesses fade to clutter and January has you asking, “Do I really need this?” about everything in your life. This free, public opening reception is the easiest way to see the show at the otherwise appointment-only gallery. —Chris Vitiello HORACE WILLIAMS HOUSE, CHAPEL HILL 2–4 p.m., free, www.preservationchapelhill.org 26 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
PAGE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11
MAX RITVO: A CELEBRATION
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK
Rimbaud famously made his major achievements in poetry by his early twenties and then quit writing the stuff forever. Now the same can be said of Max Ritvo. The difference is that he had no choice but to stop young. Ritvo, who died at age twenty-five in August, was diagnosed with terminal cancer at sixteen, a fact he reckoned with fearlessly and originally in his poems. Perhaps you caught his “Poem to My Litter” in The New Yorker last summer. “My doctors split my tumors up and scattered them/ into the bones of twelve mice. We give/ the mice poisons I might, in the future, want/ for myself,” Ritvo wrote. “We watch each mouse like a crystal ball.” His debut collection, Four Reincarnations, published by Milkweed Editions in September, is as notable for the quality and variety of its verse as for its context. Though death naturally looms large, the poems range far beyond chemotherapy and hospitals to explore, with heroic persistence, the sensations of life, love, and desire, from the quotidian to the sublime. Evan Walker-Wells, the publisher of local political mag Scalawag, became friends with Ritvo while both were undergoing cancer treatment and studying poetry at Yale with the great Louise Glück, who called Four Reincarnations “one of the most original and ambitious first books in my experience.” Now Walker-Wells and other friends of Ritvo’s give the book-release reading that he, sadly, never will, in a celebration of his remarkable life, national impact, and prodigious accomplishment. —Brian Howe
MUSIC FRIDAY, JANUARY 6–SATURDAY, JANUARY 7
N.C. SYMPHONY WITH JEREMY DENK: BEETHOVEN’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 4
Only a month after his last appearance in the area, pianist Jeremy Denk is back, joining the North Carolina Symphony for a performance of Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto. The work, written after the “Eroica” symphony and before the “Rasumovsky” string quartets in 1805 and 1806, finds Beethoven in a more introspective mood. Its themes tend toward quiet and its harmonies are often peculiar, but there are still plenty of fireworks littered about the solo part. The piece is somewhat of an odd choice, given that Denk is best known for powerful, insightful readings of some of the densest piano music around. Expect him, with the help of conductor Christoph König, to reach deep into Beethoven’s work to craft unexpected connections within it. The pianist’s lighter touch has a brilliant glow to it, which pairs well with this relatively understated work. The orchestra will also play Brahms’s first symphony and Franz Schreker’s Intermezzo, written in 1900. —Dan Ruccia MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, RALEIGH 8 p.m., $15–$75, www.ncsymphony.org
THE REGULATOR BOOKSHOP, DURHAM 7 p.m., free, www.regulatorbookshop.com
MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11
COSMIC PUNK
Jeremy Denk PHOTO
STAGE
BY MICHAEL WILSON
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6–SATURDAY, JANUARY 21
BLACKBIRD
Ray and Una should have never gotten together. She was twelve and in the throes of a crush. He was forty-one. After Ray abducted and sexually abused her, he went to prison, served his sentence, and then restarted his life with a new name in a different town. Now, fifteen years later, Una has tracked him down at his new job to take care of some unfinished business. David Harrower’s harrowing drama won a 2007 Olivier Award for best new play in Britain before Jeff Daniels and Alison Pill starred in its 2016 Broadway revival. John Honeycutt and Katie Barrett star in this South Stream production; Brook North directs. —Byron Woods SONOROUS ROAD THEATRE, RALEIGH 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat./3 p.m. Sun., $14–$18, www.southstreamproductions.blogspot.com
The recent national crackdown on nontraditional art spaces in the wake of Oakland’s devastating Ghost Ship fire has been disheartening, to say the least. Many of the pundits who have weighed in on “DIY” have overlooked systemic factors that necessitate alternative venues, like alcohol-related age restrictions and the inability of certain genres and demographics to get booked at traditional clubs. In Durham, Bull City Records is helping to fill that void with its Why Wait series, which features bands performing in the store without a cover charge or age limit. This fourth installment features Chapel Hill’s Cosmic Punk. The trio’s quiet strain of Southern-tinged guitar pop reflects a calm, vulnerable sensibility, but, as songs like the new “haha I knew this would happen” reveal, Elayna Madden’s alluring melodies are often barbed, as bittersweet as they are sticky. Slime opens. —David Ford Smith
BULL CITY RECORDS, DURHAM 7 p.m., free, www.bullcityrecords.com
WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?
MIKE CRAVER/ALL ABOUT EVE AT NCMA (P. 34), SIERRA HULL AT FLETCHER OPERA THEATER (P. 21), LOCAL BAND LOCAL BEER AT THE POUR HOUSE (P. 14), LUMINOUS CREATURES AT THE ATOMIC FERN (P. 32), PANORAMA: NORTH CAROLINA AT NCMA (P. 23), PIEDMONT QUEENS AT MOTORCO (P. 29), YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU AT THE ARTSCENTER (P. 35) INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 27
1/7 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! MATINEE AND EVENING SHOWS ($10/$13) 1/13 MIKE DOUGHTY W/ WHEATUS ($18) LD 1/14 WAKA FLOCKA FLAME W/ WELL$ SO OUT 1/15 WAKA FLOCKA FLAME W/ WELL$ ($22/$25) 1/25 TOO MANY ZOOZ ( $15/$17) 1/26 YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND W/ THE RAILSPLITTERS ($27.50/ $30) 1/27 SAMMY ADAMS ($16/$19) 1/28 COSMIC CHARLIE ($10/$13) 2/1 THE DEVIL MAKES THREE W/LOST DOG STREET BAND ($22/$25) 2/2 BLACK TIGER SEX MACHINE W/ KAI WACHI ($18/$20) 2/3 G LOVE AND SPECIAL SAUCE W/ RIPE ($25/$30) 2/4 BOB MARLEY'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION W/MICKEY MILLS AND STEEL & MORE 2/6: ISAIAH RASHAD ($17/$20) 2/7 BLIND PILOT ($18/$20) 2/8 PAPADOSIO ($17/$20) 2/10,11(TWONIGHTS!): RAINBOW KITTEN SURPRISEW/CAAMP($15) 2/16 THE RADIO DEPT W/ GERMANS($15/$17) 2/17 STRFKR W/ PSYCHIC TWIN ($20/$23) 2/18 CARBON LEAF** W/ THE RESTLESS HEARTS ($16/$20) 2/21 HAMILTON LEITHAUSER W/ LUCY DACUS ($17/$20) 2/24 NRBQ ($25/$28) 2/26 NIKKI LANE HIGHWAY QUEEN TOUR W/ BRENT COBB & JONATHAN TYLER ($15/$17) 2/28 THE ENGLISH BEAT 3/1 JAPANDROIDS W/ CRAIG FINN ($20/$23) 3/2 THE GROWLERS ($20/$24) 3/6 COLONY HOUSE ($12/$15) 3/9 TIM O'BRIEN ($22/$25) 3/10 ELECTRIC GUEST ($12/$14) 3/12 SENSES FAIL W/ COUNTERPARTS, MOVEMENTS, LIKE PACIFIC ($15/$18) 3/18 MARTIN SEXTON** ($25/$28) 3/23 SOHN**($17/$20) 3/24 JOHNNYSWIM (22/$25; VIP ALSO AVAILABLE) 3/25 HIPPO CAMPUS ($13/$15) W/MAGIC CITY HIPPIES 3/28THE MENZINGERSW/JEFFROSENSTOCK,ROZWELLKID($17/$20) 4/1 DINOSAUR JR ($25/$28) 4/2 LAMBCHOP ($15) 4/11 WHY? ($16/$18) 4/18 CHRONIXX ($22.50/$25) 4/20 FOXYGEN ( $18/$20) 4/21 JUMP, LITTLE CHILDREN SOLD OUT 4/25 PARACHUTE W/ KRIS ALLEN ($18/$20) CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 1/6-7 ELVIS FEST! FEATURING: JOHN HOWIE JR & THE ROSEWOOD BLUFF, TCB ’56, THE GTV’S, PHATLYNX, PHANTOM PLAYBOYS, KITTY BX & THE JOHNNIES, WOOLLY BUSHMEN, GREG PHOENIX EXPERIENCE, CLAMBAKE SPINOUT, DEX ROMWEBER 1/8 ENENRA, JUMBA AND GABEATS W/ P3 ($7) 1/13 THE BACKSLIDERS AND 6 STRING DRAG ($10) 1/14 URBAN SOIL W/ GROOVE FETISH ( $8/$10) 1/15 SOUND SYSTEM SEVEN W/ CONTROL THIEF, VANILLA ENVELOPE ($7) 1/17 BIG THIEF W/ SAM EVIAN ($10) 1/19 GREYHOUNDS ($12) 1/21 GASOLINE STOVE ALBUM RELEASE PARTY W/ MEMPHIS THE BAND ($8) 1/27 THE GRAND SHELL GAME, BAASH, AL RIGGS 1/28 DEAD HORSES ($10/$12) 2/1MARSHALL CRENSHAW AND THE BOTTLE ROCKETS($20/$23&UP) 2/2 BLACK MARBLE W/ YOU. ($8/$10) 2/3 ALLISON CRUTCHFIELD & THE FIZZ ($10/$12) 2/5 CHARLIE HUNTER TRIO (4 PM SHOW) 2/6 MARGARET GLASPY W/ BAD BAD HATS** ($12/$15) 2/7 ISAIAH RASHAD SOLD OUT 2/12 MARY LATTIMORE ($10/$12) 2/15 DUSTBOWL REVIVAL ($10) 2/18 SUSTO ( $10/$12) 2/20 JOHN DOE (SOLO) $16/$18 2/22 EISLEY ($15) 2/23 THE GRISWOLDS W/ DREAMERS ( $17) 2/24 PENNY & SPARROW ($15) 2/25 BLUE CACTUS ALBUM RELEASE SHOW W/ NICK VANDENBERG AND MOLLY SARLÉ ($10) 2/26 KEVIN GARRETT ($12/$15) 3/5 ALL THEM WITCHES W/ IRATA ( $12/$14) 3/7 MOOSE BLOOD W/TROPHY EYES, BOSTON MANOR, A WILL AWAY ($15/$17) 3/10 TIM DARCY (OF OUGHT) ($10/$12) 3/21 NYLON MUSIC TOUR PRESENTS POWERS & BRIDGIT MENDLER ($16/$18) 3/22 THE JAPANESE HOUSE ($15/$18) 4/13 MATT PRYOR AND DAN ANDRIANO ($13/$15) 5/3 CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH ($16) MOTORCO (DURHAM) 1/27 COLD CAVE W/ DRAB MAJESTY ($15) 1/29 AUSTRA W/ LAFAWNDAH ($17/$20) KINGS (RAL) 5/3 ANDY SHAUF W/ JULIA JACKLIN PLAYMAKERS (CH) TS TH NIGHT LD OU 1/20,21: TIFT MERRITT BOSO CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR) 3/7 VALERIE JUNE 3/20 THE ZOMBIES 'ODESSEY AND ORACLE' 50 YEAR TOUR THE RITZ (RAL) (TICKETS VIA TICKETMASTER) LD OUT 1/20 RUN THE JEWELS SO 2/23 SHOVELS & ROPE W/ JOHN MORELAND HAW RIVER BALLROOM 1/27 KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS W/ LUKE ROBERTS 3/6 COLD WAR KIDS W/ MIDDLE KIDS 3/11 SON VOLT ($22/$25) 4/1 PATRICK WATSON ($20/$22) DPAC (DURHAM 4/21 STEVE MARTIN & MARTIN SHORT W/STEEP CANYON RANGERS W W W. C AT S C R A D L E . C O M
28 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
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CONTRIBUTORS: Elizabeth Bracy (EB), Timothy Bracy (TB), Grant Britt (GB), Spencer Griffith (SG), Allison Hussey (AH), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS), Eric Tullis (ET), Patrick Wall (PW)
WED, JAN 4 CORNER TAVERN: Chris Overstreet; 9 p.m. • HUMBLE PIE: Peter Lamb & the Wolves; 8:30 p.m. • IRREGARDLESS: Mysti Mayhem; 6:30 p.m. • POUR HOUSE: TreeHouse!, Six Shots Later; 8 p.m., $8–$10.
THU, JAN 5 Advent POST Because no band BELOVED stays dead any more, Advent, which formed in 2005 after the dissolution of popular Solid State Records post-hardcore outfit Beloved, reunited last year after calling it quits in 2011. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, one supposes, but given the glut of dour metalcore acts operating in the same vein—hit ’em hard, hit ’em fast, then hit ’em with a breakdown—this one’s probably just for the diehards. Sect, Jesuspiece, Eternal Sleep, Absolute Suffering, Vein, and Joy & Invoke open. —PW [KINGS, $12–$14/6:30 P.M.]
Bob Fleming and the Drunk Girl Chorus
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FOLK A Greensboro DOOM two-piece, Bob Fleming and the Drunk Girl Chorus renders its particular doomy, harmony-laden folk-rock at a glacial pace. Fleming has one of those low-register voices that seeks to signify authenticity, but his vocals too frequently veer toward parody. Nevertheless, there’s real craft and atmosphere in the songs—a little levity would contribute a lot. El Fowl, Evel Arc and Severed Fingers open. —EB [THE PINHOOK, $7/9 P.M.]
Illpo TRIAD Greensboro duo TRIUMPH ILLPO—J Bond and Mundae Boones—may have released the strongest North Carolina hip-hop record of 2016. Worst Case Scenario hit a worthy
plateau largely due to its sole producer, D.R.U.G.S., who also contributed to Dr. Dre’s 2015 comeback album, Compton, providing the two with a rack of crunchy beats to wax poetic about everything from everyday struggles to rap bravado. As far as group dynamics go, ILLPO leans more toward Diamond District than Little Brother, but that doesn’t mean the duo isn’t poised to bring the same attention to the state as the latter. The bill features opening sets from Team Madison, Mallz, and Nacynze, plus host Precyce Politix. —ET [DEEP SOUTH, $8/8 P.M.]
Local Band Local Beer: Defacto Thezpian HIP HOPS Raleigh’s long-running Local Band Local Beer concert series kicks off the new year with its first-ever all-hip-hop lineup. With Raleigh Brewing beverages on tap, the bill is packed mostly with Bull City rap servicemen Danny Blaze, Alex Aff, and the underappreciated emoter Defacto Thezpian. Unlike past years, there will now be a cover charge for LBLB (see page 14 for more). But can you really complain about paying five bucks to see five acts, especially when one of them is a crazed upcoming rapper who calls himself Jooselord Magnus? —ET [POUR HOUSE, $3–$5/9:30 P.M.]
Rock the Ball: Mipso ROCK FOR Chapel Hill’s Mipso ROY doesn’t entirely qualify as rock, but that didn’t stop the Junior League of Raleigh from booking the quartet to kick off Roy Cooper’s inauguration festivities this weekend. No formal wear is necessary for this one—it’s meant to be a more casual night to celebrate the new governor before the main inaugural ball on Saturday. Tres Chicas’ Lynn Blakey opens. —AH [LINCOLN THEATRE, $35/8 P.M.]
ALSO ON THURSDAY 2ND WIND: 2 fer; 7:30-9 p.m. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Nash Street Ramblers; 7-9 p.m. • IRREGARDLESS: Half Past Six; 6:30 p.m. • MOSAIC WINE LOUNGE: Femme Fatal All Female DJ Night: DJ Vouis Luitton and Guests; 10 p.m., free. • PIOLA: Chris Reynolds Trio; 6:45-8:45 p.m.
FRI, JAN 6 The Arcadian Project ALT-FOLK As the Arcadian DUO Project, Hillsborough rockers Zachariah Claypole White and Danlee Gildersleeve mix folk and hard rock for a sound they describe as “acoustic alternative experimental rock.” The band has just released Leaving Home, a five-song EP of soft core folk rock. With Julia. —GB [THE KRAKEN, FREE/8 P.M.].
Bigg Brad BACK It’s become WOODS increasingly frustrating to watch the Triangle’s Cardigan Records wallow in what is still a sparse inventory of local labels. Where it could have easily overseen and developed the beginnings of more impressionable rap acts, Cardigan has instead held on to the dream that its country-boy rock rapper Bigg Brad’s gimmick would hit its peak. Well, it hasn’t. Bigg Brad probably won’t hit Kid Rock or even Bubba Sparks and Yelawolf levels, for that matter, but it’s still a spectacle worth witnessing. With Kev-O, Jaystarr Greatness, Jus Lyon, and Eddie Kruger. —ET [LOCAL 506, $8–$10/8 P.M.]
Donna Blue Band RETRO Triangle power trio POWER Mark Ritchie, Steve Janning, and Jeff Cunningham back vocalist Donna Blue for blistering sets that cover everything from grunge to reggae. Although the band mostly focuses on classic rock and blues covers, its members consider
themselves interpreters, not nostalgia buffs, redoing the hits in their own style. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, FREE/9 P.M.]
Donna the Buffalo POSI Donna The Buffalo VIBES has been following the same jammy formula for nearly thirty years, adding positive social messages and a bit of Cajun spice to bland blends of rock, folk, and reggae. Witness “Working On That,” where the New York quintet touches on racism, climate change, and being “filled with light.” —SG [HAW RIVER BALLROOM, $20–$22/8 P.M.]
Fundraiser for Hiroshi Arakawa HEALING Former Raleigh STRINGS resident, bluegrass guitarist, and Japanese native Hiroshi Arakawa has been steadily recovering from a Thanksgiving Day car wreck that killed his girlfriend and left him in intensive care. In the weeks since the accident, the local bluegrass community has rallied around him to help raise funds for his rebound. This benefit features the eccentric, vaudevillian theatrics of banjo man Curtis Eller, unconventional country- and rock-fueled bluegrass from Massive Grass, and Hank, Pattie & the Current’s duality of hard-driving traditionalism and progressive newgrass adventures. —SG [KINGS, $10/9 P.M.]
Nantucket SLEIGH Formed in 1969 in ROCKERS Jacksonville, North Carolina, Nantucket started off as a beach band, Staxx of Gold, before morphing into a Southern rock band named after the Mountain song and album Nantucket Sleighride. Although the band had nationwide success with three albums, it never hit rock-star status. “We were too diversified and too good. People couldn’t really grab a hold of us,” former bassist Mike Uzzell says. The Monika Jaymes Band and The Commune open. —GB [LINCOLN THEATRE, $15–$25/8 P.M.] ALSO ON FRIDAY 618 BISTRO: Randy Reed; 7-9:30 p.m. • ARCANA: Super Secret Dance Party; 9 p.m., free. • BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Sidecar Social
Club; 7 & 9 p.m., $13. • CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Elvis Fest; 7:30 p.m., $12. See page 22. • DEEP SOUTH: Justin Cody Fox, Jive Mother Mary; 9 p.m., $7. • FLETCHER OPERA THEATER: Sierra Hull; 8 p.m., $25–$35. See page 21. • IRREGARDLESS: Foscoe Philharmonic; 6:30 p.m. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: NC Symphony with Jeremy Denk; 8 p.m., $15–$75. See page 27. • MOTORCO: Piedmont Queens: Libby Rodenbough, Anne-Claire Niver, Claire Hitchins, Kate Rhudy; 9 p.m., $8–$10. See box, this page. • POUR HOUSE: Foothills Free First Friday: The Sunday Special, Hustle Souls, Idealistic Citizen; 8 p.m. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ DNLTMS; 10 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Michael Feinberg’s Elvin Jones Project; 8 p.m., $10–$20. • THE STATION: The 8:59’s; 8:30 p.m.
SAT, JAN 7 A Boy Named John EYELINER This New Jersey OUT! based six-piece peppers its angsty emo/synth-pop hybrid with just enough clever turns of phrase and populist sing-alongs to ameliorate the vaguely embarrassing self-seriousness of its grandiose personal presentation. The band is tuneful and talented in the extreme, but someone needs to play them a Faces record. The Ivory, Zen Marino, Cortez Collective, and Madam! Madam! open. —TB [THE CAVE, $5/8 P.M.]
Back Stabbath COVER Back Stabbath, as TRAIN one might imagine, plays the music of Black Sabbath. The Ugly Americans are an on-again-off-again punk act that blurs boundaries by splicing surf rock and tongue-in-cheek wit into hardcore orthodoxy. Think Dead Kennedys by way of Dead Milkmen. Chrome Plated Apostles—which features Clif Mann, erstwhile of Pipe and Bad Checks, on guitar—spews sleazy, sludgy murk-rock à la Mudhoney. —PW [POUR HOUSE, $8–$10/9 P.M.]
Winter Metalfest MAD FOR A reformed Bone METAL Shelter sits atop this congregation of heavies commemorating the coldest of seasons. The band, first active between 1994 and 2003, reunited last year, but its metallic alt-rock
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6
PIEDMONT QUEENS
No, Friday night’s Piedmont Queens show in Durham doesn’t feature any actual royalty, but it does present a slate of bright young talent with a twist: for this string of shows that includes stops in Greensboro and Roanoke, Virginia, each of four female singer-songwriters will be joined by a full band that includes horns, backing vocalists, and percussion. The shows were spearheaded by Durham’s Alex Bingham, who has been one of the key members of the Greensboro music collective Dirty Laundry. Bingham cofounded the group about five years ago with musician friends at UNC-Greensboro, all of whom wanted to branch out from their jazz studies. “After we all graduated and went our separate ways, we’ve gotten back together the past few years to support our favorite local artists,” he explains. The group arranges music for a full-band format, backing artists who usually only perform solo or as part of a duo. For this three-show run of regional gigs, that happened to be all female songwriters: Greensboro’s Anne-Claire Niver, Boone’s Kate Rhudy, Roanoke’s Claire Hitchins, and Saxapahaw’s Libby Rodenbough, who sings and plays fiddle in the folk outfit Mipso. “When I realized it was all women that I had in mind, and I thought about what’s going on today in terms of the political climate of North Carolina and America, I thought it was more important than ever to highlight what these artists are already
doing really well,” Bingham adds. From Rodenbough’s perspective, the Dirty Laundry collaboration is a new way to crack open her creativity. “The thing I do with [Mipso] is so familiar now that I don’t have that many vulnerable moments on stage anymore, for better or for worse. I think it’s probably good to spook yourself on occasion, so I’m glad for that chance,” she says. “On the other hand, this giant band with the horns and all is a whole different support system for me,” Rodenbough continues, adding that she plans to play material that doesn’t quite fit the Mipso format, along with a Dido cover that she describes as “a Christmas present” to herself. Rodenbough, for her part, has contributed some of the most compelling moments in the Mipso catalog since joining the young Chapel Hill four-piece full-time in 2014, breathing new life into the modern string band with her inventive songcraft and haunting vocals. Hitchins and Rhudy add differing flavors of Appalachian folk; the former tends towards delicate intimacy, while tunes like “I Don’t Like You (Or Your Band)” prove Rhudy’s words to be more biting on occasion. Niver shakes up the show’s rootsy undertones with an offbeat, ethereal sort of soul. —Spencer Griffith MOTORCO MUSIC HALL, DURHAM
9 p.m., $8–$10, www.motorcomusic.com
INDYweek.com | 1.14.17 | 29
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Andrew Marlin and Tommy Edwards perform at the Blue Note Grill in Durham Sunday. FILE PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE still betrays affinities for mid-nineties confreres like Helmet and Sevendust. Widow’s harmony-heavy brand of retro-metal is built on a foundation of Judas Priest and Def Leppard. Kinghitter, fronted by ex-Corrosion of Conformity singer Karl Agell, bridges seventies rock purism and contemporary alt-rock. With Elusory, Hayvyn. —PW [LINCOLN THEATRE, $8/8 P.M.] ALSO ON SATURDAY 106 MAIN: Songwriters in the Round: Purdy Hölsom, Dr. Will, John Saylor; 9 p.m., $7. • 2ND WIND: Butter; 9 p.m. • BEYÙ CAFFÈ: Michael Ode Quartet; 7 & 9 p.m., $12. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: 2016 TBS Road to Memphis Fundrasier. • CAT’S CRADLE: Abbey Road LIVE!; 4 & 8:30 p.m., $8–$10. • CITY LIMITS SALOON: Happy Q Year: Josh Turner, Drake White, Craig Campbell; 7 p.m. • DEEP SOUTH: I Am Maddox, Dragmatic, Unlucky Sevens; 9 p.m., $5. • IRREGARDLESS: Michelle Cobley; 11:30 am. John Bass, Greg Brink; 6 p.m. The Boulevard Ensemble; 9 p.m. • THE KRAKEN: The Cryptics, Madeleine Grace; 8 p.m. • THE MAYWOOD: Kiss The Curse, Take Heart, Through All This; 8:30 p.m., $8. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: NC Symphony with Jeremy Denk; 8 p.m., $15–$75. See page 27. • THE OASIS AT
CARR MILL: Godi Godar; 7:30 p.m. • THE PINHOOK: Tearing Up Xmas Rowdy Square Dance; 9 p.m., $5. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Luxe Posh; 10 p.m. • SLIM’S: Chateau, Necroscythe, Bumfeeder, Basura; 8:30 p.m., $5. • THE STATION: Flash Car; 10 p.m., free. Jazz Saturdays; 2 p.m., free.
SUN, JAN 8 Tommy Edwards, Andrew Marlin, and Miles Andrews BRIGHT Guitarist Tommy TRIO Edwards has dedicated much of the past five decades to bluegrass, and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down—you can find him playing a handful of gigs around the Triangle on any given week. When he teams up with Mandolin Orange’s Andrew Marlin, the two turn in delightful sets that cover traditional and unexpected territory alike. Big Fat Gap bassist Miles Andrews joins Andrews and Marlin for what should be a fine evening of picking. —AH [BLUE NOTE GRILL, FREE/5 P.M.]
House of Queens
TWEE SCENE Impose or sc the latest in wonderful p Bennett and Rawlings ar promising y the current undergroun projects Fre Creature an the microsc melodically, song-for-so homespun p Robert Wra With Naked —DS [THE
YASS House of Queens QUEENS features six North Carolina-based bands, all fronted ALSO ON by women, banding together for a CAT’S CRA triumphal evening of untrammeledROOM): EN revolution rock. The slate includes Gabeats, P3; 8 OF THE CR the cathartic punk of Poison Vermillian, Mo Anthem, the moody wail of A Light Divided, the terse melodra- $15. • NEPT Eugene Chadb ma of Nikol, Blackwater Many Friends Drowning’s brutalist songs of resistance, Henbrain’s winsome DELUXE: D prog, and the laconic romance of THE SHED at the Shed w Paper Dolls. It’s a diverse bill $5. replete with talent, a perfect occasion for a good, old-fashioned girl-power throwdown. —EB [POUR HOUSE, $5–$10/5:30 P.M.]
TUE, JA
Memory Loss
Benjy F
WILL GET Richmond’s chaotic RATHER CURIOUS LOUD Memory Loss teams singer-song up with its like-minded RVA hardcore buds in Nosebleed for displayed ov impressive c this night of frenzied, explosive hardcore punk rock. Greensboro sively rende pogo-punks Decoy and Raleigh’s over-sharing Mind Dweller set the mood, so ranging from don’t expect to text quietly in the monotony t Randy New corner at this show, unless you confections want a smashed phone. —DS someplace [NIGHTLIGHT, $6/9:30 P.M.] and Autocla on songs lik
ALSO ON SUNDAY DEEP SOUTH: Live & Loud Weekly; 9 p.m., $3. • IRREGARDLESS: Gene O’Neill; 10 a.m. Daniel Chavis; 6 p.m. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Afton Music Showcase; 6:30 p.m. • NC MUSEUM OF HISTORY: Dwight Hawkins & the Piedmont Highballers; 3 p.m. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Essex Muro, Lebaron, Swartzwelder; 9 p.m., $8. • WEST END WINE BAR-DURHAM: Eric Meyer, Noah Sager & Friends; 4-6 p.m., free.
MON, JAN 9 Free Cake for Every Creature TWEE If you don’t spend SCENE your time reading Impose or scouring Bandcamp for the latest in DIY pop, this show is a wonderful primer. Philly’s Katie Bennett and Chapel Hill’s Noah Rawlings are two of the most promising young songwriters in the current East Coast indie rock underground. Their respective projects Free Cake For Every Creature and Sunshine Faces value the microscopic and precious, but, melodically, either could go song-for-song with nineties homespun pop touchstones like Robert Wratten or Rose Melberg. With Naked Naps and T-Rexnasty. —DS [THE PINHOOK, $8/9 P.M.] ALSO ON MONDAY CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): ENENRA, Jumba and Gabeats, P3; 8 p.m., $7. • CHAPEL OF THE CROSS: Ensemble Vermillian, Molly Quinn; 7:30 p.m., $10– $15. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Dr. Eugene Chadbourne 2017 IWW Series: Many Friends; 8:30 p.m., $8. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ Lord Redbyrd; 10 p.m. • THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Sessions at the Shed with Ernest Turner; 8 p.m., $5.
TUE, JAN 10 Benjy Ferree RATHER The eccentric, CURIOUS D.C.-based cult singer-songwriter Benjy Ferree has displayed over the years an impressive capacity to persuasively render his insightful, over-sharing songs in idioms ranging from Ministry-like monotony to bracing agit-folk to Randy Newman-esque piano confections. Set to music pitched someplace between Tin Pan Alley and Autoclave, Ferree’s poeticisms on songs like “Humidity” gather
emotional weight, even if you can’t be sure he isn’t putting you on. —EB [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $10/9:30 P.M.]
Mallarmé Chamber Players WILD The Mallarmé WINDS Chamber Players kick off 2017 with an exciting, diverse concert of contemporary music for woodwinds. The program, curated by flutist Ellye Walsh, includes Duke University composition professor Anthony Kelley’s jazz-infused Grist for the Mill. Other works show off the wonderful timbral range of the flute, clarinet, and bassoon. —DR [BEYÙ CAFFÈ, $5–$25/7:30 P.M.]
The Shadowboxers R&B + The lyrics can veer SOUL toward Lonely Island levels of preposterous, and the amount of original ideas run dangerously low, but there’s something instantly ingratiating about the Atlanta-based Shadowboxers and their energetic, hip-hop inflected, blue-eyed soul. The ensemble’s backstory is as endearing and entertaining as its earnest and funky jams: it’s three Emory students who won a singing contest, ended up under the tutelage of the Indigo Girls, and somehow eventually shared a stage with Justin Timberlake, Sages open. —TB [LOCAL 506, $10–$12/9 P.M.]
Kevin Van Sant Organ Trio FAMILY The musical tone of ORGANS guitarist Kevin Van Sant is warm and affable, and he moves in and around the pocket with ease. The Shed is apparently the current home of his grandmother’s Hammond RT3 organ, making this show extra special. It’s unclear who else is in this trio, but one organ will probably be played by Gary Brunotte. —DR [THE SHED, FREE/8 P.M.] ALSO ON TUESDAY BEYÙ CAFFÈ: WW.EDGE; 7:30 p.m., $5–$22. • IRREGARDLESS: Savannah Smith; 6:30 p.m. • LOCAL 506: Craig Hilton Samba Das Sombras; 10 p.m. • POUR HOUSE: The Toasters, Wimpy Rutherford & The Cryptics; 9 p.m., $10–$12. • RUBY DELUXE: Midcentury Modular; 11 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: The OUR Story of the Rhythm of Jazz; 7 p.m., $5–$10.
WED, JAN 11 Free Improvised Music Series I FREE If this month’s FORM Monday night series with Eugene Chadbourne doesn’t satisfy your itch for improvised musical freak-outs, consider doubling up this week with this improv-focused presentation. Led by guitarist James Gilmore, this installment features Vattel Cherry and David Menestres on bass, Laurent Estoppey on woodwinds, and New Music Raleigh cofounder Shawn Galvin on percussion. It’s the first of four installments that will continue through late February, with rotating personnel throughout. —AH [NEPTUNES PARLOUR, $5–$10/8:30 P.M.]
FR 1/6
LEAFY Consisting of several GREENS top-flight ringers from the Berklee College of Music, the long-running merchants of funk convened in Boston during the early nineties and have gone on to achieve an international following. Exemplifying everything from the unstoppable groove of the Maceo-era J.B.’s to the death-rattle bass of Larry Graham on There’s a Riot Goin’ On, Lettuce honors the funk tradition while embroidering on it in fruitful ways. —TB [LINCOLN THEATRE, $20/8 P.M.]
The Subdudes CULT In 1987, after ROCKERS audience members complained that the Continental Drifters were too loud, keyboardist John Magnie told bandmates Tommy Malone and Johnny Allen to bring acoustic guitars to his solo piano gig at Tipitina’s, and Steve Amedee to bring a tambourine. The band’s name, The Subdudes, riffs on the idea that the new iteration would be subdued. The New Orleans outfit blends blues, gospel, funk, and R&B. —GB [BLUE NOTE GRILL, $30–$35/8 P.M.] ALSO ON WEDNESDAY CORNER TAVERN: Chris Overstreet; 9 p.m. • HUMBLE PIE: Sidecar Social Club; 8:30 p.m., free. • IRREGARDLESS: The Barred Owls; 6:30 p.m. • POUR HOUSE: Phononova, Joy on Fire, Bag of Humans; 9 p.m., $5–$7.
AND
LOCAL 506 PRESENT
BiggBrad / Kev-O / Jaystarr Greatness
Jus Lyon / Eddie Kruger TU 1/10
THE SHADOWBOXERS / Ages of Sages
TU 1/10
SHADOWBOXERS
W/ AGES OF SAGES
FR 1/13
UNC vs. Wake Forest on the Big Screen HEADFIRST FOR HALOS / The Second After
SA 1/14
MKR / GABRIEL DAVID / Dissimilar South
WE 1/11
Rescue Dawn / Mourning After
SA 1/21
Tan and Sober Live Album Release Party
WE 1/25
Rebekah Todd & The Odyssey MAMMOTH INDIGO / Mature Fantasy
THE TAN AND SOBER GENTLEMEN
FR 1/27
VITA AND THE WOOLF THE LAWSUITS
SA 1/28
COMPASS CENTER PRESENTS
TH 1/26
Lettuce
CARDIGAN
WE 2/1
Solar Halos / S.E. Ward / GOWN CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS HOMESAFE
TH 2/2
ESME PATTERSON
Life Lessons / Chase Huglin
COMING SOON:
TORCH RUNNER, CRO-MAGS, MICKEY AVALON, SHAGGY 2 DOPE, VIOLENT J, LOLO www.LOCAL506.com
FINDER on stands
now
THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE INDYweek.com | 1.14.17 | 31
art OPENING
SPECIAL Three Old Coots: Art EVENT at Its Roots: Pottery, drawings and paintings by Bobby Kadis, Steve Wainwright, and Abie Harris. Jan 6-31. Reception: Jan 6, 6-9 p.m. Roundabout Art Collective, Raleigh. www. roundaboutartcollective.com. SPECIAL “We Can Do It!”: EVENT Group show. Jan 6-31. Reception: Jan 6, 6-9:30 p.m. Local Color Gallery, Raleigh. www.localcoloraleigh.com. SPECIAL Cecilia Guitarte, EVENT Susan Luster: Painting and ceramics. Jan 7-25. Reception: Jan 7, 1-4 p.m. Cary Gallery of Artists, Cary. www. carygalleryofartists.org. SPECIAL Corridor Exhibitions: EVENT Carrie Alter, Paula Baumann, Andie Freeman, Celia Gray, Judy Keene, and Don Mertz. Jan 7-Mar 25. Reception: Jan 6, 6-10 p.m. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. Favorite Things: Jan 6-28. Tipping Paint Gallery, Raleigh. www.tippingpaintgallery.com. Jessina Leonard: Photography. Jan 8-Feb 28. Bull City Arts Collaborative: Upfront Gallery, Durham. www.bullcityarts.org. Oceans and Moods: Drawings and paintings by Lyudmila Tomova. Jan 8-Feb 26. The Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist, Chapel Hill. SPECIAL Re-Surface: Regional EVENT Emerging Artists-inResidence: Conner Calhoun and Kelly S. Murray. Jan 6-28. Reception: Jan 6, 6-10 p.m. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org.
1.4–1.11 Resolutions 2017: Group show. Jan 4-22. Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, Hillsborough. www. hillsboroughgallery.com. SPECIAL Stacy Bloom EVENT Rexrode: Mixed media. Jan 8-30. Reception: Jan 8, 2-4 p.m. Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill. www. chapelhillpreservation.com. See p. 26.
ONGOING Ruth Ananda: Painting. Thru Jan 31. Bean & Barrel, Chapel Hill. www.beanandbarrel.com. — Thru Jan 31. Zola Craft Gallery, Durham. www.zolacraftgallery. com. LAST Annual Holiday Art CHANCE Gallery Exhibit: Group show. Thru Jan 5. ERUUF Art Gallery, Durham. www.eruuf. org. Anywhere but here: Group show. Thru Jan 20. Lump, Raleigh. www.teamlump.org. Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation: By examining the history of Indian immigrants as they assimilated into the U.S. and their contributions to American life—musical, political, culinary, scholarly, sporting, and cultural—this traveling Smithsonian exhibit reframes what it means to be an Indian American. Thru Apr 2. City of Raleigh Museum, Raleigh. —David Klein Cascading Color: Work by Elizabeth Kellerman. Thru Apr 16. Durham Convention Center, Durham. www. durhamconventioncenter.com. Chinese Lantern Festival: This holiday spectacular returns to Koka Booth Amphitheatre to celebrate the Chinese New Year. More than twenty LED
displays illuminate the woods surrounding Symphony Lake, including a fiery dragon, a pair of intricate swans, and a forest of trees with Santa and Frosty in the middle. The festival also hosts cultural performances and sells artisan crafts. $10-$15. Thru Jan 15. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary. www.boothamphitheatre. com. —Erica Johnson LAST Claymakers CHANCE Instructors’ Holiday Showcase: Pottery. Thru Jan 7. Claymakers, Durham. www. claymakers.com. Color Across Asia: Thru May 13, 2018. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org. Constants and Unknowns: Mixed media by Randy McNamara. Thru Jan 13. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www. durhamarts.org. Consummation: St. George. Thru Jan 21. Naomi Studio and Gallery, Durham. www. NaomiStudioandGallery.com. Caroline Coven: Thru Jan 24. HagerSmith Design Gallery, Raleigh. www.hagersmith.com. Gordon Dean: Site-specific installation. Thru Feb 5. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. Discover Your Governors: Thru Aug 6. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. Dress Up, Speak Up: Costume and Confrontation: In this visually dazzling, politically charged exhibit, artists of international renown and local legends alike unravel clothing, costume, and ornament into identity politics, especially those pertaining to race. Through September. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham. www.21cmuseumhotels. com/durham. —Chris Vitiello
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“A Method
“Luminous Creature” by JP Trostle
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6
JP TROSTLE: LUMINOUS CREATURES The more you learn about astrophysics, the more you realize that light isn’t what lets us see the universe—it constitutes a universe to be seen and regulates the limits of spacetime. Though light suffuses and structures our lives, so much of the stuff went unperceived for so long that it’s fair to say that even on the sunniest days, humanity lived in the dark for millennia. But digital technology has brought all kinds of secret light to light, a source of mystery, inspiration, and fascination for artists as well as scientists. In Luminous Creatures, which has a closing reception at The Atomic Fern on Friday, graphic artist JP Trostle deliberately misuses a digital camera to distort everyday objects into an incandescent menagerie of creatures made all of particles and waves. They are there, because the camera captured them; they are not there, because they never were. It’s all the light we cannot see, seen and imbued with uncanny sentience. —Brian Howe THE ATOMIC FERN, DURHAM 6–8 p.m., free, www.atomicfern.com
LAST CHANCE Artists Mee Thru Jan 8. 2-3 p.m. A Chapel Hill Finding Eac Stories from Personal na Durham Hi www.muse org. Flag Post: D Jan 19. SPE www.spect Flora and F Thru May 1 Museum, C ackland.org The Great O Thurston. T Art Gallery naturalscie #Greenspa by Judy Cra Musser. Th McCain Ga
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with that temporal disorientation. It’s powerful work by supremely capable artists, and the intensity of their proximity is life-changing. Thru Jan 8. Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. www.nasher.duke.edu. —Chris Vitiello Super Shitty Art Show: Group show. Thru Jan 20. Mercury Studio, Durham. Dawn Surratt: Photography. Thru Jan 14. Through This Lens, Durham. throughthislens.com. LAST The Ties That Bind: CHANCE Work by Precious Lovell. Thru Jan 8. CAM Raleigh, Raleigh. camraleigh.org. Traces: Drawings, photography, and sculptural objects by Angela Eastman and Sonja Hinrichsen. Thru Jan 14. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org.
“A Method of Traveling” by Angela Eastman is on view in Traces at Artspace. LAST Extended Remix: CHANCE Contemporary Artists Meet the Japanese Print: Thru Jan 8. Closing tour: Jan 8, 2-3 p.m. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org. Finding Each Other in History: Stories from LGBTQ+ Durham: Personal narratives. Thru Jan 15. Durham History Hub, Durham. www.museumofdurhamhistory. org. Flag Post: Derek Chan. Thru Jan 19. SPECTRE Arts, Durham. www.spectrearts.org. Flora and Fauna: Mixed media. Thru May 14. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www. ackland.org. The Great Outdoors: Robert Thurston. Thru Jan 29. Nature Art Gallery, Raleigh. www. naturalsciences.org. #Greenspaces: Paintings by Judy Crane and Wendy Musser. Thru Feb 27. Betty Ray McCain Gallery, Raleigh. www.
dukeenergycenterraleigh.com. History and Mystery: Discoveries in the NCMA British Collection: This is the first time in decades that NCMA has curated an exhibit from its British holdings of Old Master painting and sculpture. Thru Mar 19. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org. —Brian Howe LAST Imagination CHANCE Architectures: Work by Eric Mack. Thru Jan 6. UNC Campus: Sonja Haynes Stone Center, Chapel Hill. www. sonjahaynesstonectr.unc.edu. Inventing History: Cherished Memories of Good Times That Never Happened: Drawings by Richard Chandler Hoff. Thru Jan 13. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www.durhamarts.org. Jake and Charlie: Folk Art by Jake McCord and Charlie Lucas: Mixed media. Thru Jan 26. Alexander Dickson House, Hillsborough. www. historichillsborough.org.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARTSPACE
SPECIAL Lost & Found: EVENT Paintings by Charles Williams. Thru Jan 21. Reception: Jan 6, 6-10 p.m. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. My Favorite Things: Group show. Thru Feb 4. Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh. www.leehansleygallery. com. Natural Forces: Paintings and drawings. Thru Feb 5. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill. www. frankisart.com. Nature on Canvas: Brian Moyer. Thru Jan 23. Herbert C Young Community Center, Cary. www. townofcary.org. Nightscapes: Paintings by Charles Williams. Thru Jan 21. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. Passing Through: American Landscapes: Photography. Thru Jan 31. Crook’s Corner, Chapel Hill. www.crookscorner.com. Planting Hope: Drawings. Thru
Feb 5. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill. www.frankisart.com. Plein Air Painter’s Group Showcase: Thru Jan 28. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org. Post Mégantic: Photography by Michel Huneault. Thru Feb 18. Duke Campus: Center for Documentary Studies, Durham. www.cdsporch.org. JJ Raia: Photography. Thru Jan 14. Through This Lens, Durham. www.throughthislens.com. Rolling Sculpture: Art Deco Cars from the 1930s and ’40s: These ostentatious cars are the obscene baubles of the interwar industrialists whose progeny are today’s rogue traders, junk bond kings, and profiteering Wells Fargo executives. But the cars offer a nuanced look at how design aesthetics responded to the production line and consumer culture with a mix of fantasy and faith. Thru Jan 15. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.
ncartmuseum.org.—Chris Vitiello Selections from the Photography Collection: Thru Jan 22. Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. nasher. duke.edu. Selma to Montgomery: A March for the Right to Vote: Photographs by Spider Martin. Thru Mar 5. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org. LAST Southern Accent: CHANCE Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art: This is less a simple exhibition than a speculative and critical archive of Southern identity. Slavery, the Civil War, racism, and their complex inheritances? Much of the work explores and interrogates that. Connections to place so deep that land and body become the same thing? Many artists unravel the warp and weft of that. The dissonance of the past’s intrusion into the present? The exhibit shimmers
Transits and Migrations: A Summer in Berlin: Student photography. Thru Apr 15. Duke Campus: Center for Documentary Studies, Durham. www.cdsporch.org. Under the Burning Sun: Work by Kenneth Nkosi. Eno Gallery, Hillsborough. enogallery.net. Unpacking the Past, Designing the Future: The Scrap Exchange and Lakewood in Partnership: Stories and artifacts. Thru Feb 11. The Scrap Exchange, Durham. scrapexchange.org. LAST The Value of Aging: CHANCE Thru Jan 6. Cary Senior Center. townofcary.org. William Noland: Dream Rooms: Long video takes examining technology and intimacy. Thru Feb 5. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum. org. LAST Zanele Muholi: CHANCE Faces and Phases: Photography. Thru Jan 8. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org.
INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 33
screen FRIDAY, JANUARY 6
MIKE CRAVER/ ALL ABOUT EVE If you want to just sit back and enjoy a classic film with live musical accompaniment, be warned—1950’s All About Eve is an unnerving classic film. It portrays an excruciatingly gradual power shift from Broadway mainstay Bette Davis to her ingénue project, Anne Baxter, paced by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz to skin the nerves. And Mike Craver of the Red Clay Ramblers has fit music to plenty of Sam Shepard plays and movies that have left audiences feeling raw. He might be the perfect musician to tease more out of a movie that’s already a psychological slide down a piano wire. Take it in with special cocktail treats as NCMA opens its Winter Film Series.—Chris Vitiello NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART, RALEIGH 7:30 p.m., $10–$15, www.ncartmuseum.org
SPECIAL SHOWINGS For The Next 7 Generations: Fri, Jan 6, 7 p.m. The Oasis at Carr Mill, Carrboro. www. oasisatcarrmill.com. Met Opera: Nabucco: Various theaters, Triangle-wide. Sat, Jan 7, 1 p.m. www.metopera.org/ Season/In-Cinemas/TheaterFinder/?.
OPENING
A Monster Calls—This visually dazzling animated fable is alternately honest and manipulative in dealing with the suffering of a child, but its messily-ever-after perspective is refreshing. Rated PG-13. Reviewed on p. 25. ½ Hidden Figures— This excellently acted true story of three black women triumphing over racism and sexism in the 1960s space 34 | 1.4.17 | INDYweek.com
race has a TV-movie softness but still powerfully portrays bigotry and courage. Rated PG. Reviewed on p. 26. Underworld: Blood Wars—Rival vampire clans do battle in the fifth installment of this action horror franchise, starring Kate Beckinsale. Rated R.
A L S O P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at www.indyweek.com. ½ Allied—Sexual tension, spousal spying, and WWII nostalgia power a hit-and-miss effort from director Robert Zemeckis. Rated R. Arrival—Denis Villeneuve’s thoughtful aliensto-Earth film, one of the year’s best, is less about first contact than first communication. Rated PG-13.
Doctor Strange— Marvel’s magic master’s feisty cape, among other spectacular visuals, almost steals his movie. Rated PG-13.
a traumatized handyman returning home after his brother’s death powers Kenneth Lonergan’s quotidian tragedy. Rated R.
½ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them—This Rowling-penned film is a promising start to a new Harry Potter franchise. Rated PG-13.
Moonlight—Barry Jenkins’s must-see drama deals with a gay black man’s coming of age with sensitivity and nuance. Rated R.
HH½ Jackie—Natalie Portman’s exceptional impersonation of Jackie Kennedy is cramped by a film that locks her in the orbit of her husband’s death. Rated R.
HH½ Passengers— Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence work hard in this glossy interstellar vehicle for provocative moral entanglements, but it ultimately implodes from the pressure of its star-driven, crowd-pleasing mission. Rated PG-13.
La La Land—Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash follow-up reunites Gosling and Stone in a breezy jazz musical that overpowers reservations with its Technicolor charm. Rated PG-13. ½ Manchester by the Sea—Casey Affleck’s brilliantly restrained performance as
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story—This war flick set in the Star Wars universe takes place just before the first film. Rated PG-13.
page READINGS & SIGNINGS Greg Hansbrough: Enduring Strength: The Story of the Other Hansbrough Brother. Wed, Jan 4, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks. com. Susan Rivers: The Second Mrs. Hockaday. Wed, Jan 11, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.
LITERARY R E L AT E D Branford Marsalis and Wayne Winborne in Conversation: Wed, Jan 11, 6 p.m. The Shed Jazz Club, Durham. In the Wings: Intimate Apparel:
Play discussion. Mon, Jan 9, 7 p.m. Southwest Regional Library, Durham. www. durhamcountylibrary.org. Max Ritvo: A Celebration: Celebrating the late poet’s Four Reincarnations. Wed, Jan 11, 7 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com. See p. 27. Periodic Tables: Science Goes Public: With Dr. Holly Menninger. Tue, Jan 10, 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham. www.motorcomusic.com. Raleigh Little Theatre Discussion: The Whipping Man: Wed, Jan 4, 6:30 p.m. Mordecai Historic Park, Raleigh. www. raleighnc.gov/mordecai.
stage OPENING Best of Raleigh Roundup: Stand-up comedy. $12. Wed, Jan 4, 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www.goodnightscomedy.com. Blackbird: Play. $16-$20. Jan 6-22. Sonorous Road Productions, Raleigh. www.sonorousroad.com. See p. 27. The Great Cover Up: Night One: $10. Wed, Jan 11, 8:30 p.m. Kings, Raleigh. www.kingsbarcade.com. Dave Stone Comedy Show: With Leo Hodson and Josh Rosenstein. $10. Sun, Jan 8, 8 p.m. 106 Main, Durham. Taylor Williamson: Stand-up comedy. $16. Jan 5-7. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com.
ONGOING LAST An American in Paris: CHANCE Musical. Thru Jan 8. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. www.dpacnc.com.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6– SUNDAY, JANUARY 8
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU In 1936, playwrights George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart came up with a strange answer to the Great Depression: an out-and-out screwball farce in which three generations of a New York family collectively drop out of the rat race to pursue their oddest passions, including snake and stamp collecting, candy making, xylophone, ballet, and amateur fireworks. But unhappiness looms when noneccentric granddaughter Alice falls for Tony, her rich boss’s son, and the question arises: How can these families possibly be integrated? One Song Productions, the area’s only independent theater company entirely managed by overachieving regional teens, begins its fifteenth season with this hellzapoppin’ romp—Byron Woods THE ARTSCENTER, CARRBORO 7:30 p.m. Fri. & Sat./3 p.m. Sun., $7–$10, www.artscenterlive.org
You Can’t Take It With You PHOTO COURTESY OF ONE SONG PRODUCTIONS
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Y WEEK ND
crossword If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “Diversions” at the bottom of our webpage.
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this week’s puzzle level:
© Puzzles by Pappocom
There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.
3 4 7 9 2 3 4 6 8 5 5 4 1 5 6
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If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “Diversions”. Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com 1.4.17
solution to last week’s puzzle
4
8 5 1
30/10/2005
8
6
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1
4
claSSy@indyweek.com
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ON STANDS FEBRUARY 22 RESERVE BY JANUARY 11 INDYweek.com | 1.4.17 | 39
Featuring: John Brown’s Little Big Band, led by John Brown Durham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by William Henry Curry Dee Dee Bridgewater, Three-time Grammy Winning Jazz Singer 100 Men in Black Chorus Keith Snipes, Noted Actor/Narrator Admission: $20 FREE for any student with ID and Seniors (tickets required) All tickets are available at the Duke Box Office in the Bryan Center, or by calling 919-684-4444. Tickets can also be obtained online at: Tickets.Duke.edu
TO A DV E R T I S E O N T H E B AC K PAG E : C A L L 9 1 9. 2 6 8 .1 9 7 2 ( D U R H A M /C H A P E L H I L L ) O R 9 1 9. 8 3 2 . 8 7 74 ( R A L E I G H ) • E M A I L : A DV E R T I S I N G @ I N DY W E E K .C O M